Legal Eagle and Anton Marcus may look well-nigh impregnable in the R1.5m, Group 1 WFA L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate (1600m) at Kenilworth on Saturday but the recent history of the country’s top mile race suggests they are odds-on to get beat.
Four of the last five favourites have bitten the dust and no five-year-old has managed to win the race since Mother Russia six years ago.
“We haven’t been that hard on Legal Eagle since his last win but he is fit enough and well enough to do it,” says Sean Tarry.
Indeed there is only one reason why his horse shouldn’t repeat his victory of 12 months ago and that is local hero Marinaresco, a four-year-old like all the last four winners. In theory he shouldn’t win. Apart from anything else he is drawn badly and needs further. He also has nearly half a length to find on Green Point running but his stable is now in better form, his jockey is ultra-talented and he fights like a terrier.
The betting suggests it’s a two-horse race. You can get anything between 14-1 and 66-1 about the other nine. The in-form Brett Crawford, successful with Futura two years ago only to lose the horse in an owner fall-out, has two solid place-possible contenders in last year’s fourth Captain America and Sail South as well as the likely pacemaker.
French Navy has the ability – only the favourite is rated higher – and at 16-1 he appears to have been overlooked. Abashiri almost certainly needs another run but The Conglomerate could well get into the shake-up despite once again being drawn in the bush.
Not that many three-year-olds run in the Queen’s Plate but the last five to do so have produced a winner, a second and a third. Seemingly Bold Rex is a fair bit better than his Premier run would suggest (Mathew de Kock: “He definitely should have won – he was very unlucky”). You can get 4.2-1 a place and you could do worse.
Marcus and Grant van Niekerk may already have fought it out in the Maine Chance Farms Paddock Stakes by this stage and again it’s not a race where you should take out a bond to put your house on the favourite. Four of the last six have been beaten.
Bela-Bela gets the vote only because the connections of Silver Mountain seem so concerned about last season’s runaway Cape Fillies Guineas winner lasting out a trip over which she has yet to race. Her best form – and, don’t forget, she didn’t thrive in Durban – suggests those concerns might well prove groundless.
But this is no two-horse race and every time anyone asks Justin Snaith about Bela-Bela he mentions Star Express who is about ten times the price. Safe Harbour (7-1 best) justified significant market support in the Lanzerac Ready To Run and was only pipped on the post when equally well backed in the Fillies Guineas.
Nightingale just might make the frame but Goodtime Gal beat her last time and the trip is in favour of Chevauchee who at 20-1 could be the best outsider.
