Muzi Yeni stuns Pick Six punters with 40-1 winner

Muzi Yeni — riding again after a suspension — delivered a knockout blow to Pick Six punters when he won the third leg of the exotic bet at Turffontein on Saturday on 40-1 chance Dungeons.

The win consigned thousands of Pick Six tickets to the bin, with the pool for the popular bet grossing R1,174,000. An amount of more than R730,000 will be carried over to another meeting.

In his previous start, Dungeons had been beaten by nearly 10 lengths by moderate performer Smelting, who took 40 races to open his account.

The only plus factor about Dungeons — apart from the fact that Yeni rode a forceful race — is that the three-year old is trained by Roy Magner, the former Zimbabwean champion trainer who is enjoying another successful season.

After Dungeons’ win in the fifth race, it was the turn of Fanie Bronkhorst, who’s a relatively new name in the training ranks, to add to punters’ misery by winning two legs of the Pick Six with horses starting at 25-1 and 16-1.

Bronkhorst was granted a licence in December 2020 after three years with Paul Matchett who taught him the tricks of the trade. This term the former rugby player has sent out 22 winners and is in 26th spot on the national trainers log.

His first winner on Saturday came in the sixth race where Princess Claria defied her odds of 25-1 by beating Brett Webber’s consistent filly, Batak.

Despite winning a Work Riders event in November, the filly had finished last of nine in her penultimate start and ninth of 13 on her most recent outing.

As Bold Act is trained by Mike de Kock, the daughter of Act Of War wasn’t impossible to find in the seventh race, but still went off at 10-1.

Bronkhorst was back in the winner’s enclosure in the eighth race in which 16-1 chance Love Bite put her poor last run behind her to notch the fourth win of her career.

There was some relief for backers when the well-supported Convocation won the last leg of the Pick Six, but by then dreams of a profitable Easter had already been shattered for most.

Robyn Klaasen has her team in good form and — after a string of placed runs — her juvenile, Heirloom, opened her account in the second race.

The winner was bred by Pippa Mickleburgh who also bred Statesman, the well-fancied son of Gimmethegreenlight, with the R900,000 buy sent off as favourite to make a winning debut for Johan Janse van Vuuren.

Unfortunately, the 33-20 favourite was never going well and beat only one rival home.