Rascallion beats Zapatillas and Gimme A Prince to land a third career Graded stakes win (Picture: Wayne Marks)
Graeme Hawkins (Gold Circle)
Less than half-a-length covered the first four past the post in a thrilling renewal of the R350 000 Cape Mile (Gr3) at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday with the evergreen 7yo Rascallion coming out on top over Zapatillas, Gimme A Prince and Montien. Rascallion was returning from an injury-enforced layoff after finishing third in the Legal Eagle Stakes back in May and his victory on Saturday represented a fantastic training feat by Vaughan Marshall.
Ridden by Gavin Lerena and taking the shortest way home, Rascallion quickened nicely from a handy position turning for home and kept going strongly to hold out Zapatillas by a neck. Attempting the distance for the first time, Gimme A Prince was dropped out to the rear of the field from his wide draw but was gaining strongly at the line and Dean Kannemeyer confirmed post-race that the L’Ormarins Kings Plate (Gr1) on 4 January will be his target. “We will probably give next month’s Green Point Stakes (Gr2) a miss and go directly into the LKP” added Kannemeyer.
Brett Crawford will no doubt be equally thrilled with the progress Zapatillas has made since being gelded. The former WSB KZN Guineas (Gr2) winner has endured an injury interrupted career, but Saturday’s Cape Mile was his third run back and he has improved with each outing. He is a classy and impressive-looking son of Master Of My Fate, but Crawford has to nurse him along and is keeping his options open as to when Zapatillas will next appear.
Back to Saturday’s winner Rascallion, who earlier this year finished runner-up to Double Superlative in the WSB Cape Town Met. In the post-race interview following his nail-biting victory in the Cape Mile, part-owner Marsh Shirtliffe expressed his desire to see Rascallion have another crack at the R5-million WSB Cape Town Met on 25 January and if he maintains his form, and Marshall can keep him sound, there is no doubt that Rascallion will have a realistic chance of going one better on the Cape’s biggest race day.
Montien ran his heart out but came up just a little short on Saturday. He will be no pushover in the forthcoming Feature races and, although no doubt disappointed with getting scant reward for such a valiant effort on Saturday, trainer Piet Botha will be cautiously optimistic his big-striding son of Louis The King will nevertheless have a major part to be play during the Cape Summer Season. Royal Aussie attracted solid support on course but failed to go through with his effort and finished a rather one-paced fifth, close on three lengths behind the leading quartet.
But while the Cape Mile was a humdinger, it was the performance of Snow Pilot earlier in the day that got the Kenilworth tongues wagging. Last season’s Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas (Gr1) winner was sent out a short-priced favourite to win the third race, a Progress Plate over 1400m, but it was the manner of victory that created a buzz around the racetrack. Snow Pilot hopped out in front, setting brisk fractions from the jump, and then pulling further and further clear of the opposition to win gearing down by six lengths. He appears to have matured into an exciting four-year-old and the Drakenstein owned and bred son of Lancaster Bomber could well be on track for a second career Grade 1 victory.
Richard Fourie and Craig Zackey shared the riding honours with a double apiece while Justin Snaith’s mustard form continued with a treble for the Philippi-based yard.
