Picture: Rachel Venniker about to clinch a treble at Turffontein Inside today aboard the Paul Peter-trained Flame Flower (JC Photos).
Rachel Venniker took full advantage of her 1,5kg female allowance at Turffontein Inside today and rode a treble.
Two of the wins were for champion trainer Paul Peter, whose stable jockey from last season is set to emigrate to New Zealand.
Venniker is now probably favourite, alongside Muzi Yeni, to land the position of first call rider to Peter.
If she does land the position her chances of landing the national championship will increase substantially.
However, those chances will also depend on whether she can land good rides in either Gqerberha or Cape Town, because riding in just two centres will likely not be enough.
Her treble today started with a finely judged victory on the Grant Maroun-trained Global View gelding Global Breeze in a 2000m Maiden Handicap. Global View is by Galileo so the three-year-old not surprisingly relished the step up in trip and he was also 2.5kg (plus the 1.5kg claim equals 4kg in total) better off with Clap Of Thunder for a two length beating, so it was somewhat surprising he drifted out to 6/1, whilst Clap Of Thunder started 2/1 favourite. Venniker had a lot of ground to make up in the straight after the light weight Inkosana had stolen a march, but the horse ran on steadily and got there by half-a-length in the end.
In the next race over 1600m she came from second in the running on the Peter-trained favourite Electric Gold (Flying The Flag) to snare pacemaker Indus Knight close to home and win going away by half-a-length. Electric Gold had thus claimed a hattrick of victories. Considering he was given only a three point raise for his last win and Venniker is allowed the 1.5kg claim, he effectively ran off the same merit rating as last time.
In the sixth race Venniker produced a fine front-running race on the Peter-trained Flame Flower (What A Winter) to hold on by 0,40 lengths in the 1600m event.
She had a slow start to the season but has now won five races at a strike rate of 9.62%, which is seven off the pace being set by Kabelo Matsunyane.
Johan Janse van Vuuren had a double at today’s meeting.