See It Again is among the favourites for the Cape Town Met this weekend. Picture: Gerhard Duraan/Gallo Images Justin Snaith has decreed a brisk early pace for Saturday’s WSB Cape Town Met. South Africa’s champion trainer will give instructions for one or two of his six runners to go a good lick, ensure an “honest” pace and give his “big guns” the best chance of running on to claim victory in the R5-million, Grade 1 contest.
Those big guns would appear to be ruling favourite See It Again, defending champion Eight On Eighteen and ultra-consistent Sail The Seas. “Okavango is in the race for a reason,” said Snaith on a tipping panel show this week, hinting strongly that his four-year-old would be the assigned hare. But another Snaith runner, Legal Counsel, a proven sprinter-miler, could also do the job.
Okavango is indeed likely to go to the front from the Met’s 2000m starting pole, jumping from the widest No 11 draw, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be a hapless sacrificial lamb – as his pillar-to-post victory in the recent Premier’s Trophy showed. Snaith revealed that he’d experimented with Okavango setting a pace in gallops and the gelding had not been headed. A similar scenario played out in the Premier’s.
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“A very interesting horse. If he’s in front, he just rolls on; and he stays all day,” observed Snaith wryly. You couldn’t exactly call it a double-bluff, but you sense that Snaith might see Okavango as a lurking fourth “big gun” in his arsenal.
Snaith has also been candid about his stable superstar and ruling Equus Horse of the Year, Eight On Eighteen. “He contracted biliary; a nasty case. That meant he didn’t have the right prep run. He has recovered well, though.”
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