Webber’s ‘Lucy’ could add to winning tally
Filly has won two races and takes on seven rivals at Turffontein on Sunday
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is the Beatles 1967 hit song from their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album. It was both popular and controversial.
The racehorse Lucy In The Sky is a four-year-old filly trained by Brett Webber who wasn’t even born when the Beatles were in their prime. Still, the daughter of Noble Tune has done the Gauteng conditioner proud by winning two races and she bids to add to that tally at Turffontein on Sunday.
John Lennon always maintained Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was inspired by his son’s, Julian, drawing of a classmate at his nursery school. The BBC did not agree and banned the song for what they believed to be a reference to drugs.
Webber, who saddled his first winner in 2008, had his best season in the 2020/2021 campaign with 19 winners and 64 placings. Lucy In The Sky contributed to two of that total.
On Sunday, the four-year-old takes on seven rivals in the seventh race and because most have pretty average form the filly rates a banker bet for punters in exotic perms.
Grant Maroun’s seven-time winner Double O Eight rates the main threat to Webber’s runner — the mare’s form this year includes a second to Sean Tarry’s talented sprinter Chimichurri Run.
Double O Eight is carded with the hefty weight of 63.5kg but this will be reduced to 59.5kg as a result of the apprentice claim of young Xola Jacobs.
Lyle Hewitson gave the Webber stable its first success of the new season when scoring on Western Dance last weekend and the mare bids for a quick follow-up in Sunday’s sixth race.
With Hewitson required for the Tarry runner Senescence, Muzi Yeni steps in for the ride on Western Dance and he could find Chris Jonker’s runner Mariposa a tough opponent. Punters need to include as many runners as possible in exotic bets.
No surprise if we witness a Yeni-Hewitson finish in the fifth race with the former partnering Willo’thewisp for Paul Matchett and the SA champion aboard Jumeirah Gold for Tarry. It is another lowly handicap that will not take much winning.
St John Gray sent out 65 winners last season and his grey filly Indigo Winter looks the one to be on in the first leg of the jackpot. The three-year-old made a pleasing debut when running third at the Vaal and S’manga Khumalo retains the ride.
Bred at Bush Hill Stud, Indigo Winter is out of the mare Go Indigo, who won eight races, including the grade 2 Gauteng Fillies Guineas and grade 3 Three Troikas Stakes.
Stuart Pettigrew’s filly Nice Move has an eye-catching jockey booking in Keagan De Melo and also after a promising first run, looks the right one for the exacta.
Earlier in the meeting, De Melo teams up with Nice Move’s stablemate Castletown in the second race over 1,400m. This R500,000 son of Silvano looks on course for a successful career if his first two starts are any guide.
Castleton was sent off favourite for the grade 2 Golden Horseshoe on July day, but had to settle for fifth place behind Waterberry Lane. The three-year-old faces only five rivals on Sunday and is expected to prove too smart for Zuzan and Winter With Jo.
Kenilworth hosts an eight-race card on Saturday and Greg Ennion’s five-year-old On Captain’s Side looks worth a punt in the sixth race.
Selections
1st Race: (10) Slings And Arrows (1) Coming In Hot (11) Val D’Orcia (8) Masuulka
2nd Race: (2) Castletown (5) Zuzan (1) Winter With Jo (4) Look Yourself
3rd Race: (5) My Master (6) Stunning Kitten (4) Flinders Range (2) Quality Joker
4th Race: (6) Indigo Winter (7) Nice Move (1) Fort Snow (2) Willow Lane
5th Race: (6) Willo’thewisp (5) Jumeirah Gold (3) My Kingdom (1) Grimaldi
6th Race: (2) Mariposa (1) Western Dance (3) Senescence (9) Go Dream Machine
7th Race: (2) Lucy In The Sky (1) Double O Eight (7) Hear The Trumpet (5) Feather The Nest
8th Race: (8) Capetown Affair (3) Informative (4) Dark Travel (1) Top Wesselton