Cape Winter Series

As the aspiring classic 3yo leave the Cape for balmy Natal, we have the Winter Series in the Cape with a 100K bonus to the winner of all: a mile, 2000 and 2400. Pocket Power won it when he wintered in CT. State Crown could have, but then Bass took the 2000 & 2400 with Naughty Prince and Bill Of Rights.

Any contenders staying behind to give it a go this year?

always a good series..out of all the major centres off seasons the cape off season is by far the best

pirates Wrote:

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> always a good series..out of all the major centres
> off seasons the cape off season is by far the best

Gee, Pirates. You mean KZN's is not?

Yes agreed Pirates, the Winter series is the best 'off season ' programme
throughout the country. Apart from the 3 yr old's, the juveniles series also
interesting and competitive with many champs arising

Casey's Son - 2nd in the Langerman and won listed Cape Juvenile last winter. Not far off the best in Cape Guineas and Derby, and Lightheart stable always best in Winter. Has prep sprint today

kzn got the chapter challenge where we reward horses for their mediocrity..well done to gold circle western province for not having this pathetic initiative

I agree with Pirates,Western Cape have always managed to stage decent 'off season' racing...Trainers seem to use this time to allow the young good ones the time to gain experience in the soft underfoot conditions while they mature.
Racing today at Kenilworth is a great card with race 5 being good enough to qualify as a mini feature on its own..Mystery Dame in the 7th is my value bet for the day.

To be fair, Cape Town does probably have the kindest conditions for off-season racing. Granted it can turn into a real bog at times, especially in July and August, but they don't have to put up with either the fierce humidity and heat of the KZN off-season or the concrete going of the Gauteng winter. This makes it much more attractive to run decent horses out of season, and the races are accordingly put on for them.

This is particularly the case with 2yo and 3yo horses. Furthermore, because the Cape Feature season comes too early for the 2yos all of the biggest juvenile Features by definition have to be staged off-season. I love Cape winter racing, I must admit, although when the penetrometer starts hitting the high 30's the whole thing can degenerate into a lottery.

Its not so bad - over 14/1600 on the old course just box the five lowest draws for your Quartet!

The lottery that you refer Magic is happy times for me as i try to find that one PA per month that pays bombs - Mike Stewart and Macdonald included in every perm - difficult to have a strike on any particular horse in this time but % Pa's often see me through

Of course, you can also have great fun following horses with a known affinity for really soft or heavy ground. Sometimes the same suspects come bouncing back for several winters in a row.

Years ago Louis Naude trained a sprinter called Bad Influence. This horse could just about do the breaststroke I reckon. I collected on him plenty of times on muddy winter's days! The horse eventually retired with 13 wins (just about all of them in winter) from 143 starts.

Mr Hawaii is right. John MacDonald is a man to follow closely in the wet months. His horses thrive in the winter, and regularly pop up at big prices. The draw on the Kenilworth old course is vital,as Dr Who points out, but the draw down the Kenilworth straight course can change dramatically from one meeting to the next and often amounts to the proverbial lottery.

Still, one has to give full marks to the teams at Durbanville and especially Kenilworth, who manage to produce a course which is fit for racing under the most trying circumstances. If Scottsville had to get half the rain which Kenilworth receives in a normal winter we wouldn't be able to race there for a year...!

Come to think of it, that wouldn't be a bad thing - but that's another story.

I remember Bad Influence well - i once won a big pick6, and he arrived in one of the legs at his usual 25/1 or so(the strange thing was when he did pop up he used to win going away like a good thing). Another from that era was Pittsburgh, a crippled sprinter of Lighthearts who also won more than 10 races. He came into his own when the penetrometer approached 40

The biggest lottery is actually Durbanville in winter if they all make a beeline for the outside rail. Then whoever gets to the 'airstrip' first comes home lonely.