adminMandla Moyo Sports Correspondent
THE provisional list of horses to battle it out in the Champion Juveniles Stakes Grade (3) race, the second leg juvenile series, set for Borrowdale Race Course in Harare next weekend has been released. The sprint event will be contested over 1 200m by a field yet to be announced and at stake will be $9 000 in prize money for the winner and the three placed runners to fly past the finishing post.
The local horse racing authorities Mashonaland Turf Club has finally cast the die by releasing the nominations list. A tricky field featuring eleven juveniles have made it through the first two preliminary stages of this competition, the nominations stage, the weight and draws stage.
On Tuesday the acceptance stage, which is the last qualifying hurdle of any horse race competition will be held at the Borrowdale Race Course at 10am.
According to racing manager Betina Gurajena the acceptance stage would be followed by printing of the race card.
“We are now waiting for the final list which will be available on 22 June (tomorrow). After that we will quickly move to print the race card which we expect to be ready by 24 June (Wednesday),” said Gurajena.
Horses that make it past the acceptance stage will be loaded into the stall gates on Sunday ahead of battle.
According to the list made available courtesy of MTC, it (list) comprises six colts, two geldings and three fillies that are vying for all the available slots.
Trainer Bridget Stidolp has two entries in this competition, Al Salaam and Rocky Road. There are two local bred juveniles from the stable of Alyson Wright, Call Me Early and Paint It Black.
Amy Bronkhorst has put Equiano and Starry Nations in the line of fire alongside Gokhan Terzi who has a single entry in Demagogue.
The highest number of entries is from the stable of Corne Spies comprising Paulus, AP Ikhaya and Scandal.
It is also refreshing to note that there are four local bred juveniles in the competition.
However, no matter which runners make it through the final stage, looking for a winner among the pack at hand is like trying to locate a needle in a hay stack, a difficult task by any stretch of imagination.
The fact that all juveniles are of unknown quality makes the field tricky for the punters, while on the other hand they (punters), who have been starved of action for the past 26 days, cannot wait for Tuesday to see which of their favourite runners have been accepted into the final list. Seven more events will be held on the day with 131 horses nominated for all the races.
According to the racing manager this race meeting is a charity race day for the University of Zimbabwe, held to celebrate the institution’s 60th anniversary as well as fund-raise for students’ scholarships.
Online Reporter