Gimme Katrina looks like the play of the day

Calm after the storm. This seems to be the case at the Fairview race track on Friday, where a packed meeting of nine races awaits punters.

It has been hectic times at the race meetings in Port Elizabeth lately.

There was the unique situation of a meeting cut short due to the severe heat, then at the next meeting the jockeys protested about some dangerous patches on the track, and last Friday not everyone was happy when there was a switch of surface after some welcome rain.

At these meetings the raiders from Cape Town did extremely well, but in some local circles there were complaints about the visitors cleaning up at Fairview, rather than supporting their own meetings.

Well, everything should be back to normal on Friday, though we kind of got used to something extraordinary happening every Friday and expecting the unexpected.

Get to Fairview early as the first race at 12.10pm is the Workriders Maiden Plate.

It is always exciting when the workriders get a chance to show what they can do.

Family and friends will be supporting the riders and the race will probably get big crowd support on the day.

The raiders have left our shores and some punters won’t be happy with that.

The visitors certainly helped us with some ready-made bankers and things suddenly look much more difficult again.

When in doubt as a punter, you can always turn to the champion trainer Alan Greeff, who is yet again launching an attack on Gavin Smith’s record tally of 150 wins in an East Cape season.

Greeff has 104 winners and is on target to get to the record before the season ends.

Though the Greeff stable is in fine form, it would be a surprise if he bags a lot of winners as there will be stiff competition throughout the day.

All the PE trainers are hungry to get to the winners’ box after the Cape raiders made things difficult for them.

The main race is the Lakeside Handicap and it should be a very interesting battle.

Only eight runners will contest this one, but most of them are in with a winning chance.

Many punters don’t like to have a banker in the last race, but the Yvette Bremner-trained filly Gimme Katrina looks like the play of the day in the ninth.