The first thing that hits one when looking at the race meeting at Fairview on Wednesday 1 July is that jockey Richard Fourie is not carded to ride. That opens the field for the other riders to have multiple winners and jockey Craig Zackey could be the chief beneficiary.
Rare Earth and Heliotrope seem his best rides, but all of Sweet Julia, Greek Heiress and Captain Clever also hold winning chances.
The Gavin Smith-trained Heliotrope has won two of her last three starts. Heliotrope was an impressive winner on local debut when scoring over 2000m on the turf. She was expected to follow up on that in her next start, but the meeting switched to the Polytrack and she clearly lacked the experience when a close-up fifth.
She proved that run all wrong when winning next time out, beating rival in this Homing Pigeon by 0.75 lengths over 2200m on the Polytrack. On that particular occasion, Homing Pigeon (Richard Fourie) got right up to Heliotrope but failed to pass her.
The drop to 2000m in Race 5 should not be a problem for both of them, but there is a 2.5kg swing in favour of Homing Pigeon. Jockey Zackey was aboard the five-year-old mare that day and Kyle Strydom replaces Fourie.
The battling maiden Rare Earth makes her local debut for Dean Smith and tries the Polytrack for the first time in Race 3, but she is consistent and is tackling a very weak field, so could score.
Sweet Julia has run well for Zackey a couple of times already, including when scoring in October, and she could win Race 2, a MR 68 Handicap over 1000m.
It is very unusual to see Zackey on a Kelly Mitchley-trained runner, but Greek Heiress will do duty for the pair in Race 4, a Maiden Plate over 1600m. He has ridden her twice already with not much success, but Mitchley has improved many runners and this could be more of the same.
Captain Clever is not well drawn in Race 7, a MR 68 Handicap over 1300m, but he is coming off an improved performance and could have more to offer.
It might be worth taking an each-way chance with Amanatto in the last race. New front-running tactics were tried with her last time out and it clearly did not work. She had shown improvement before that and Xolane Ndlovu could take this opportunity to have a winner.
Clive Robinson
