Racing comes bouncing back to Borrowdale Park on Saturday and the feature is the 1200m Jacaranda Free Handicap. The course is looking good – and it rained – so it is all systems go.

Seven runners have stood their ground for the main event.  Bridget Stidolph saddles top weight Willfull Path; Kirk Swanson sends out Dindingwe and True Beauty, while Gokhan Terzi is represented by Mind Master, Mazikeen and VainLikeThat.  

And… trainer Amy Bronkhorst picks up the cudgels again after quite a lengthy absence, with a newcomer to Borrowdale, Powder Puff.

At one time the 1200m Jacaranda Free and the 1600m Tote Free Handicaps were considered pointers towards the three-year-old Classics.  Being handicaps this wasn’t always the case.  Last year Love To Bluff won the Jacaranda Free, and Wantage was second.  As for the Classics, the class of 2019 had Lily Blue to contend with and she contested neither the Jacaranda Free nor the Tote Free.

However, Wantage went on to win the Tote Free, and the Zimbabwe 2000, and ran well behind Lily Blue when she was collecting her laurels.

This year the 2020 Borrowdale three-year-olds have had COVID interruptions to contend with and are coming back on Saturday after the annual racing break.

Two fillies, Willfull Path and Dindingwe (winner of the 2020 Champion Juvenile Stakes), are probably the main contenders, having dealt with most of the other runners before, but they have never met up with each other. This will be interesting and Dindingwe will have weight on her side. Both have their regular riders, Morgan Nyamagwete and Apprentice Rodgers Satombo, in the irons.

Powder Puff, ex the Azzie yard, is by Judpot out of a Fort Wood mare and her last outing was over 1450m at Turffontein. She has raced 8 times from 1000m to 1600m and finished just over 8 lengths behind rising star Anything Goes.  Amy’s charge remains the dark horse here.

Presumably, we are still racing behind closed doors with the same conditions which applied at the last Borrowdale Park race meeting on August 28.  In any event it will be good to be back in action.  

Photographs by Zimbabwe Equine News