Fourie has four plum grade 1 rides

While jockey Richard Fourie will know the cards have to fall right for you in big races, he might be harbouring thoughts of a cleansweep of the four grade 1 sprints as he travels to Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Saturday morning.

The 37-year-old has fancied mounts in the Golden Horse Sprint (Rio Querari), Gold Medallion (Lucky Lad), SA Fillies Sprint (Princess Calla) and Allan Robertson Championship (Mrs Geriatrix).

If you fancy taking a bet on this four-timer, bookmaker Lance Michael is offering 140-1. And if one had to pick the pick of this quartet it would be Princess Calla. Yes, she has a serious rival in Desert Miracle but the form of Sean Tarry’s mare can’t be faulted. This will only be her second visit to the Scottsville track — the first was when Anton Marcus won on her in April 2021.

Lucky Lad looks next in the Fourie pecking order as — yet another member of Tarry’s stable — the youngster hasn’t put a hoof wrong for her Kentuckybased owners, Angela and Antony Beck.

Tarry will respect the chance of Outlaw King from Dean Kannemeyer’s stable. Though a beaten favourite on his last appearance, that run will have given him valuable experience at a track which has caught out numerous top performers.

It’s been a big season for Candice Bass-Robinson — now third in the trainers log — and her Allan Robertson runner, Winter Cloud, is understandably favourite after stopping the clock at 63,01sec in the Strelitzia Stakes here in April. Sorry, Mr Fourie, this is where Mrs Geriatrix loses her unbeaten tag. It comes as something of a surprise that Justin Snaith’s star sprinter, Rio Querari, who has contested 26 races, has never run at the Scottsville track.

The six-year-old is 9-2 second favourite for the Golden Horse Sprint and this is the race that could produce a surprise result. The suggestion is that punters include at least half a dozen runners in their exotic perms.

This column is putting forward We’re Jamming (9-1) — only two lengths behind Gimme A Prince in a race at Kenilworth in December — as worth an each-way punt to beat his stablemate and Kannemeyer’s runner who does tick most of the boxes.

Michael and Adam Azzie run Bartholdi and Supreme Warrior and the latter — the mount of S’manga Khumalo — can earn minor money. In the antepost market, Bartholdi (8-1) is at a shorter price than his stablemate and there may be precious little between the pair if they both run to form.

Another 8-1 chance is Corné Spies’ runner, William Robertson, who perhaps falls into the Cousin Casey category in that backing the R500,000 son of Rafeef usually ends in tears.

With “Striker” Strydom in the irons, the four-year-old did run a creditable second in the Computaform Sprint but before that was a beaten favourite at 2-1 in the Hawaii Stakes. He was never a factor in the Drill Hall Stakes and — while worthy of inclusion in larger perms — he comes with risks attached.

So perhaps a treble is the best option. Fourie to score on Lucky Lad and Princess Calla and add in Winter Cloud who just might be the banker bet on the 10-race card.