The challenge this weekend will be very different for Gavin Lerena.
The contrast will be stark for champion jockey Gavin Lerena. Last Saturday he was in Florida in the US, bustling South African superstar One Stripe along in the 1800m Pegasus World Cup on the tight Gulfstream Park track.
This Saturday he’ll be in action on the wide-open spaces of the Kenilworth turf, plotting to get a sprinter-miler outsider called Cosmic Speed to keep going for the full 2000m of the WSB Cape Town Met.
Lerena did a grand job on One Stripe, finishing a close second to stablemate Test Score in the prestigious $1-million (R16-million) invitation race and drawing world racing’s approval to SA.
“The South African ran his heart out but just ran out of racetrack!” exclaimed the Gulfstream race caller.
Different tactics required?
Watching a rerun of the Pegasus, one is struck by the brisk pace the race was run at, with the final bend becoming a right old scrap for position leading into a short final stretch. It was Lerena’s very first ride in the US, but he handled that run-in with aplomb, going down by just a head – and one stride.
Race pace is always a talking point with the Met, with the “Cape crawl” sometimes coming into play. This notorious tactic involves front-running jockeys slowing things down as much as they can, thus turning the final few hundred metres into a pot-luck sprint and foiling the talents of the best horses in the contest (who are usually the favourites).
Such a scenario might favour the likes of Lerena’s mount Cosmic Speed (23.00), who has never been tried over more than 1600m.
Snaith wants honest pace
But a crawl is highly unlikely in the 2026 Met as champion trainer Justin Snaith – who saddles six of the 11 starters – has declared he wants “an honest pace”.
In a recent interview, Snaith stated emphatically that artificially run races are “not Grade 1 racing”, so we can confidently predict one of his six charges will be sent forward as the hare if there are no other takers.
Snaith’s two most fancied runners, Eight On Eighteen (4.75) and See It Again (3.80), will be running on at the death, hopefully from off a smart pace. Both are owned by Nick Jonsson, whose pink and green silks will also be carried by Okavango (21.00), so the latter could be asked to take one for the team.
However, another Snaith runner, Legal Counsel (51.00), is also a speed horse who has won from the front before and might be asked to take his chances at the sharp end. Come to think of it, Lerena and Cosmic Speed might have similar ideas.
