A great weekend for racing – plus an awards evening

IF you are a true Eastern Cape horse racing fan you might as well find a nice camping site close to the Fairview track in Port Elizabeth for the weekend – a long weekend for racing.

We start with eight races today on the polytrack and will be back on Monday for another meeting.

In between it is the awards evening of the Port Elizabeth Racing Association at Fairview on Saturday night.

It is always nice to see the stars of the past season being rewarded. The big award is for horse of the year and this year there are a few worthy of this award.

Some of us have been practising since last year at eating from a revolving table after some spectacular mishaps last year, which saw some food and drink flying through the air – and that was early in the evening. We will be ready this time.

The big race today is the Founders Trophy over 1600m. Only nine runners will face the starter but most of them have winning chances in a very competitive affair.

Two Gun Kid will be back to defend his title and Silent Partner is in red-hot form. They must be included in all bets.

Hopefully, the winners will be a bit easier to find than last Friday. It was disastrous for punters when rain forced the meeting to be moved from the grass surface to the polytrack. The polytrack saved the meeting, but the upsets kept on coming.

Some of the PE trainers have already made it clear that they intend to take their best horses to contest some of the big races elsewhere in the country this season.

It is great news that we might see two of PE's best in action on the Vaal at the end of the month in the Emerald Cup, Africa's richest horse race on sand.

Last year In A Rush, trained by Gavin Smith, won this race for the East Cape and he has again been entered.

Blaze Of Fire, from the Yvette Bremner stable, is the other PE entry. We look forward to seeing them in action.

Punters' Pal tips for Fairview:

PA 432

2-10-11-12/2-3-4/1-5-12/3/2-7/1-2-7/1-4

PICK 6 R2304

2-3-4-10/1-5-12/3-4/2-3-4-7/1-2-3-7-9-13/1-2-4-8

- Punters' Pal