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Elley has another go with stalwart Kapil

Published by charl on January 27, 2010

STAN Elley will attempt to win the J&B Met again this year with his top class Jallad gelding Kapil.

Now seven years old, Kapil’s best runs since he’s returned from Dubai have been in the last two runnings of the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate and in last year’s Gold Challenge.

All of those races were over 1600m.

However, it is not necessarily the 1600m distance that Elley felt suited his charge in those races, rather it was the size of the fields.

“All of those 1600m races had about 10 to 11 horses in them,” he said. “Kapil usually comes from last, but doing it in an 18 to 20 horse field like the Met or the July is trickier.”

Kapil was unlucky in last year’s Met.

He turned for home in last place together with River Jetez, who went out for her run, while he went in. He then met interference and had to be checked twice as horses came across him.

“But for that I think he would have finished with River Jetez,” said Elley.

River Jetez finished a length behind Pocket Power in third that day, while Kapil finished 3,5 lengths behind the champion in fourth.

This year he faces both Pocket Power and River Jetez on the same terms as last year.

Kapil is not the soundest of horses and his legs have to be very carefully looked after. He consequently prefers the sting out of the ground.

“For him he pulled up fine after the Queen’s Plate,” said Elley. “On Saturday he will be a sound horse. I’ve spoken to the racecourse manager, Dean Diedericks, and he said he would be doing plenty of watering before Saturday too, so I’m not concerned about the going.”

Kapil did his final hard work for the big race on Tuesday with big race jockey, MJ Byleveld, aboard.

“MJ was delighted with the workout,” said Elley. “He has finished his work and I am very happy with him.”

Of the horse to beat Elley said, “People always find reasons every year why they can beat Pocket Power, but he still always comes out and wins. I do have a feeling that Fabiani is going to run a big race this year though. Also, nobody knows how good the front-runner, Red Rake is, he is an unknown quantity.”