Oh Susanna has recovered from her injuries in the Sun Met and is back on course for the KZN season but the Horse of the Year’s post-race veterinary report reads like a despatch from the Charge of the Light Brigade – a mouth injury, cuts in her right hind leg and lame as well.

Justin Snaith said: “I think it happened when Do It Again ducked in behind her. We put her on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories that night but on the Monday after the race she could hardly walk.
“However by the end of that week she was OK again and she is now in a paddock with Snowdance. She will go to Durban and we just have to choose which races.”

Glen Kotzen had to abandon Vodacom Durban July ambitions with Cape Derby winner Eyes Wide Open last season but he is determined to get there this time despite the problems that have arisen in the meantime.

The Woodhill trainer, successful in the July with Big City Life ten years ago, said: “Eyes Wide Open is haemo-concentrating. We got him right before the Met but obviously not right enough. He came with a strong run but then didn’t go through with it.

“It is a lot of work but we will do it for Durban and get him right. Maybe the change of scenery will help as he has done very well up there in the past.”

The four-year-old won the Premiers Champion two seasons ago and from a limited KZN campaign last year he finished third in the Champions Cup.

Vaughan Marshall is to aim his CTS 1600 winner One World at the Winter Guineas at Kenilworth on April 27 while there is a possibility that last season’s Cape Guineas winner Tap O’Noth could be retired to stud.

Snaith runs three in the opening maiden juvenile at Kenilworth on Saturday with Richard Fourie on Rio Querari. The R625 000 CTS Ready To Run purchase is the first horse the champion trainer has had for former British Racing Journalist of the Year Richard Edmondson and his intrepid Sky News war correspondent wife Alex Crawford. Bryn Ressell and Jill Warner are partners in the colt.