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Trainer Joey Ramsden is running his top three-year-old King Of Pain in the Matchem Stakes at Durbanville on Sunday but Equus Horse of the Year Variety Club is staying at home.
Ramsden said: “I put Variety Club in the Matchem at the second nomination stage and I took him to Durbanville to see where we were with him.
“He worked fantastically well but I don’t think he will run on Sunday.
"I feel that, if I did run him, I might be hurrying him a bit.
"I don’t need to do that so I will wait a bit longer but there is a strong possibility that King Of Pain will run.
"He is the best of my three-year-olds at this stage and he has done very well. He and In A Rush will probably be my Matchem runners.”
King Of Pain won four of his five starts as a two-year-old including the Langerman and the Puma Winter Juvenile while In A Rush would have run in the Emerald Cup if the original date was not washed out by a storm of biblical proportions.
Taipan was also nominated for the Matchem at the second entry stage and Dean Kannemeyer expects to run him as well as Depardieu.
He said: “The race will do Taipan good and I have also nominated him for the Betting World Algoa Cup at Fairview on October 28.”
Kannemeyer added that Divine Jet is back on track after recovering well from his operation in May when he chipped a bone in his near-fore knee two days before he was to run in the KRA Guineas.
"I began picking up the pace of his work and I hope to have him back on the racecourse in December," he said.
Divine Jet has won four of his five starts, his only defeat coming in the Cape Premier Yearling Sales Guineas as favourite.
Kannemeyer said that it was unlikely that his R1.5 million colt Cape Royal will run in the R2.5million Emperor’s Palace Ready To Run Cup over 1 400m at Turffontein on November 3.
The Royal Academy colt was the only horse he bought at last year’s Ready To Run Sale and while pleased with Cape Royal’s effort last Saturday at Durbanville over 1000m in soft going is looking to take a different path.
It was his first run since running unplaced in the G1 Tsogo Sun Medallion over 1200m at Scottsville in May and was a fine effort considering that it was only his third career start and had to contend with a merit rating of 94.
Kannemeyer said due to his merit rating he was going to be tough to place, so was not quite sure what route he would take.
Kannemeyer also has promising four-year-old Equitoria back in hard work. He won his first start out of the maidens, a MR 72 Handicap over 2 000m at Durbanville, last October, but hasn’t run since.
Kannemeyer’s kingpin three-year-old this season is likely to be the Western Winter colt Capetown Noir, who is bound for the G2 Selangor Cup over 1600m on December 2 and the G1 CPYS Guineas on December 22.
Kannemeyer has his Australian-bred Fastnet Rock four-year-old colt Liancourt Rock at Noordhoek where he has been cantering on the beach. The promising sort hasn’t raced since finishing fifth in last season’s Cape Guineas.
