Trainer Wendy Whitehead is stepping out some of her top two-year-olds as well as last season’s leading light in the yard, Keep On Dancing. As a result, hers could be the stable to follow at Scottsville on Sunday.
Princess Ozma, who is related to talented Highveld sprinter Cleaver Greene, won her maiden so impressively it suggests she could be something special. She may be meeting a field full of mostly unknown quality but the best of them will have to be good as an assault on the upcoming Grade 1 Allan Robertson looks to be on the agenda for this exciting daughter of Futura.
Whitehead will be hoping to lead her into the winner’s box early after Race 1, Juvenile Plate for fillies over 1200m. Incidentally, this is the course and distance over which she won her maiden and that of the Allan Robertson Championship.
Air Of Mystery, Eau De Vie and Little Miss KJ have shown good potential and seem certain to fight out the minors.
Sundance Kid jumped slowly, hung badly and never looked like getting to speedy Rulership but the ‘penny dropped’ and he took off late and got up to share. He is a well-bred son of Master Of My Fate and will line up in Race 2, a Juvenile Plate over 1200m. Like Princess Ozma, because he is a winner, he will have to give weight to most of his rivals.
But he should also be full value for the weight as he is well bred and is a half-brother to Grade 3 winner Mount Laurel who won her first three in a row improving with each start and who has also placed in a Grade 1 – incidentally she runs for Whitehead in Race 7.
Speaking of Race 7, a MR 102 Handicap for fillies and mares over 1500m, is where Whitehead could dominate the finish with her two runners. Keep On Dancing has had a quiet time of it recently and while rider Donovan Dillon, who rides both the juveniles, is aboard Mount Laurel, Keep On Dancing is still be the one to beat.
Her regular partner is champion jockey Warren Kennedy. Four of her seven career wins have been at Scottsville including the Grade 2 KZN Oaks while Mount Laurel has yet to win further than 1450m.
Keep On Dancing needed her last race which came after a rest and it is during this part of the season that she comes alive.
Other horses to follow on the day include Winter Journey (Race 3) and Desert Rose (Race 9).
Clive Robinson
