At Fairview on Tuesday we see the return to the Eastern Cape of South African Champion Jockey Richard Fourie.
Fourie had a record-breaking season, and a fair proportion of those winners were in the Eastern Cape and for trainer Alan Greeff.
Admittedly, his replacement in the last few weeks while Ri was on holiday, Sean Veale has done an excellent job both punters and trainer Alan Greeff will be happy that he has returned.
Even though there are a lot of small field races there does not look to be any odds-on shots for the combination
There are, however, two runners of the Greeff and Fourie combination that may be worth a bet at this meeting – Global Ally In Race 5, and Can’t Say No in Race 7.
Global Ally was making little progress in the Western Cape having won four times from 21 starts but immediately made an impact at Fairview, winning on the Polytrack.
The gelding turned that course debut win into a hat-trick with some nice wins and a couple of starts later a fourth win under Greeff’s care took place in March.
Since then, Global Ally has found it tough to take on the better horses in the province. However, he races a Pinnacle Plate over 1900m on the Polytrack this time around and is well weighted.
What is really worth noting is that Fourie was aboard the now six-year-old for all four of those wins and in total he has only ridden him five times.
The recently inducted champion has not ridden Global Ally in his last four starts.
The obvious danger and the runner actually weighted to win is Zatara Magic. If it was a handicap Zatara Magic would be giving 3kg to Global Ally but is only giving him 1.5kg.
Global Ally did beat Zatara Magic by 0.50 lengths back in November but that rival turned the tables on him a month later.
There should not be much between them but perhaps trainer Greeff’s runner is the more consistent.
Can’t Say No looked good winning back-to-back in April and May and although she has struggled a bit since then she has cracked pole position draw and should get the run of Race 7, a Classified Stakes over 1300m.
Clive Robinson
