A trip to Johannesburg is being considered for J&B Met hero Hill Fifty Four as part of his preparation for the Vodacom Durban July.
Trainer Vaughan Marshall reported that Hill Fifty Four has taken the race very well and indicated that his conections are keen to for him to go to Jo’burg.
“We are to discuss the matter but, if he did go, it would only be for two races,” Marshall said.
“They are the HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes at Turffontein on March 29 and the President’s Champion Challenge there four weeks later.”
The handicappers have raised Hill Fifty Four a kilo to a new merit rating of 112 for his Met win at Kenilworth last week.
Marshall said he was still elated to have won the Met for a second time. The Milnerton-based trainer first won Cape Town’s biggest race as a visitor from Durban in 1996 with La Fabulous.
“It has always been my dream to win the Met again as I rate it the best race in the country,” he said.
Hill Fifty Four suffered epistaxis (bleeding) in last year’s Durban July so it was a fine training feat to bring him back to win the Met just seven months later.
Marshall was happy with the way he had pulled up after Saturday’s race and said there had been no sign of the problem he had suffered in Durban.
“While that bleeding had been a slight worry, I thought it was probably due to something in the air because a lot of horses in Natal bled around that time,” Marshall said.
It seems likely that Hill Fifty Four will lead a strong team from the Marshall stable in Durban later this year including the classy All Is Secret.
Marshall won the G1 Mercury Sprint in Durban last year with All Is Secret before the three-time G1 winner suffered a setback when bitten by a spider in November.
She is back in training and had a racecourse gallop at Kenilworth on Saturday.
Another of Marshall’s likely Champions Season hopefuls Tribal Dance was injured in last year’s July but also galloped at Kenilworth on Saturday.
He is set to resume in the Magnum Mile next weekend.
