When an outsider is the one to be with

Karl Neisius is ancient for a jockey at 58, but he's still at the top of the game. Age brings wiles and wisdom, as I keep telling whippersnappers.

Circumnavigating Cape Town's Kenilworth racecourse a dozen times a week for decades has put Neisius on nodding terms with every blade of grass there. Everyone watches to see what Kenilworth Karl does; the man with all the tricks of winning on that venerable stretch of turf.

But when the old bullet and a horse called St Tropez defied convention in an early race at Saturday's Queen's Plate meeting, eschewing an inside-rail run and heading for the wide outside off the final bend, it caught other jocks napping. A couple of them were inclined to follow Krazy Karl, but ended up undecided as the inside run was obviously the shortest route to the finish and the turf there looked firm and racy. Those guys ended up in no-man's-land, and finished nowhere.

But St Tropez (8/1) won on his tod, centimetres away from the huge crowd pressed up against the outside rail. The colt had been six lengths back at the turn, yet won by nearly two lengths. Krafty Karl outfoxed his rivals, sussing out the superior going. Or so everyone thought.

From then on, for the rest of the day, every race around the turn saw the entire field make a beeline for the white paint on the wide outside.

The Queen's Plate itself was a case in point, though the tactic didn't make any odds for odds-on favourite Legislate, who finished last. (A bad cold has been blamed for the shocker.)

Futura (6/1), racing at the back, was switched slightly inward by Bernard Fayd'Herbe to get around the pack jostling for the outermost line. It gave him a clear run to the finish and victory.

The argy-bargy among the rest of the field bunched on the outside rail was certainly not to the advantage of second favourite Louis The King (5/1), who was baulked for a run, had to wait for a gap and just failed to nab Futura. Jet Explorer (16/1), the iron horse recovered from a shattered jawbone, was in a similar position to "Louis" and rode his slipstream into fourth.

For all three of these horses, it was an auspicious preparation for the Met at the end of the month.

One excited commentator said the Queen's Plate result upset the whole order of racing in South Africa. If so, the outside-rail fad of the day played a small part in that upheaval.

The amusing thing, though, is it was all an accident.

In Race 4, Karl Neisius didn't go wide through any wisdom of the ancients.

The video replay shows St Tropez's bridle coming adrift early on, with the browband stuck over the horse's left ear and leaving the rider with little directional control. St Tropez simply decides to take the road less travelled, away from the sweaty action on the inside. Karl goes with the flow.

That said, the old master stayed calm and rode out his wayward charge in vintage style. Kool Karl.