ONE of the most competitive fields in years will face the starter for the 2 000m battle for Grade 1 honours in the R2-million J&B Met to be run at Kenilworth Racecourse in Cape Town on Saturday, January 27.
The famous race is the premier event of South Africa's Sizzling Summer Season and heads a 10-race card which also features two other Grade 1 events, the R500 000 Investec Cape Derby over 2 000m and the R400 000 Fancourt Majorca Stakes over 1 600m.
Eight of the 24 first acceptors for the J&B Met did not stand their ground at the final acceptance stage today (Monday) but the only surprising non-acceptor was Charles Laird's Hunting Tower who had drawn badly near the outside of the field.
As most of those that failed to accept had been drawn wide, only those drawn 10 and wider initially have benefited by the exclusion of Golden Dice who had drawn nine. They will move in one position at the barrier.
With British rider Jamie Spencer under suspension, his ride on Mike de Kock's Equal Image has been taken by top rider Johnny Geroudis. The gelding is drawn well at seven but has top weight of 58kg to shoulder.
Vodacom Durban July winner Eyeofthetiger from the Dean Kannemeyer yard and Geoff Woodruff's Elusive Fort are joint second in the weights with 56kg with Eyeofthetiger breaking from barrier 10 and Elusive Fort having drawn wide at 15.
The Charles Laird coupling of Lion Tamer and Likeithot have both drawn well and stable jockey Anton Marcus has chosen to ride Lion Tamer with Guilermo Figueroa on Likeithot. Lion Tamer showed he was in top form on Saturday when he won a good race over 1 400m at Turffontein.
Marcus gave up his day off to ride Lion Tamer in that race and was obviously very pleased with the Western Winter colt's performance.
Emperor Napoleon, runner-up to Jay Peg in the Bloodstock SA Cape Guineas recently, will be ridden by stable jockey Weichong Marwing and, while he is drawn right on the outside of the field at 16, trainer Mike de Kock said the draw was not a problem as both Emperor Napoleon and Equal Image would come from off the pace.
Mike Bass accepted will all three of his runners and Jeff Lloyd will again ride Pocket Power who is generally seen to be the horse to beat. He is the ante-post favourite and being drawn at nine with 53kg on his back he has everything going for him.
Paul Lafferty's Pinero is the only KwaZulu-Natal runner in the race. He is highly rated by his stable and it is no secret Lafferty was very upset last year that the gelding did not get a run in the Vodacom Durban July.
Lafferty has acquired the services of Piere Strydom to ride the gelding and he could be seen as the dark horse in the race.