Turf Talk Newsletter – 3 February, 2025

Parisian Walkway completes a superb display of resolute galloping. (Candiese Lenferna Photography).

Alec Laird suffered a body blow on Saturday morning when his big TAB Gauteng Guineas hope, Fire Attack, had to be scratched from the R1 million Gr 2 event, but it turned out to be a fine day because he won it with 25/1 outsider Parisian Walkway and for good measure finished third too with a newcomer to his yard, Aristotle.

Alec admitted to having had a day of “roller coaster” emotions.

He said in a telephone interview on Sunday morning, “There has been a virus around. We’ve had a couple getting it. Overnight, they get some sort of bug. We ran blood tests on Friday. Fire Atttack came up suspect. So we ran another one on Saturday morning and it was even higher. You’re just going to run nowhere. If we bother to use science, then we  have to listen to it. By normal accounts, he was looking great and was in great shape. But this virus is insidious, because the temperature was also within normal measures or just slightly high.  And he’d eaten up too. But we’ve had others and others guys have also, where they have a bad run and you run this test and it tells you they are fighting off a virus.”

Fire Attack had the best form in the TAB Gauteng Guineas on paper.

Furthermore, he had beaten the yard’s second string runner, Parisian Walkway, by 4,75 lengths in the Gr 2 Betway Dingaans.

However, after the scratching of Fire Atttack, Alec still had hope.

He said Parisian Walkway had moved up in the Dingaans as if he would easily go past Greaterix, but had not gone through with it, which had been similar to his previous start.

The connections had then decided to geld him.

The gelding, as they hoped, seemed to have done the trick.

Diego De Gouveia took Parisian Walkway to the front from pole position and he dicated at a good pace and with a beautiful rhythm.

Knowing that the Ideal World gelding would ideally need further, Alec was pleased to see him going at a good pace.

However, the De Kocks looked likely to have a Guineas double when the odds-on favourite Greaterix cruised past Parisian Walway under the hands on the inside rail at the 200m mark.

Earlier, Muzi Yeni had in masterful style managed to find the rail for Greaterix in sixth position in the eleven horse field from a tricky draw of nine.

Greaterix was almost a length clear at the 100m mark, but then became one-paced.

Parisian Walkway’s big stride was not faltering and he rallied to win by 0,40 lengths in the end.

An elated Alec said on Sunday morning, “It was his first run as a gelding, which is not always easy to pull off. But he was ready for a run two weeks ago. The race was cancelled, so it turned out he didn’t need that run. Diego did a great job. He gets along well with this horse. He won his maiden on him and he’s been reunited with him and the horse is running well for him now. I think a mile is his minimum and he kept up a really good tempo, if he had gone slower he would have been outsprinted by the others. If you can run a mile in a certain time … it’s all about the pace.”

Perhaps Greaterix also needs gelding or perhaps he did not stay, as he has been said by De Kock to have so much speed others can’t keep up with him at home.

Nevertheless, Parisian Walkway’s win was done in a style reminiscent of one of the best fillies Alec ever trained called Mill Hill, a courageous front-runner who kept up a resolute gallop throughout and was hard to peg back. Parisian Walkway is a chestnut just like Mill Hill was, which made the comparison more vivid.

Laird also landed third place with a newcomer to his yard, Aristotle, a Rafeef gelding who was coming off two wins over 1250m and 1400m respectively in Cape Town.

Aristotle was beaten 4,20 lengths and was folllowed home by Legend Of Arthur and Musical Score, who were thrashed by 7,30 and 8,55 lengths respectively.

Parisian Walkway gave Wilgerbosdrift and Mauritzfontein a Guineas double as breeders.

He is owned by Gary Basel, Lance Clark and Werner Volschenk and cost R450 000 at the BSA National 2yo Sale.

Alec has landed a Gr 3 and a Gr 1 with Atticus Finch and now a Gr 2 with Parisian Walkway and Gary Basel and Lance Clark have shares in both horses.

Alec said, “We’ve got a nice bunch bunch of horses and I must say thanks to the owners, they stepped up and had a go at the Sales for me and it has paid off.”

Parisian Walkway’s time of 98.59 seconds can be compared to Spumante Dolce’s time of 98.94 seconds and he could be a Triple Crown candidate.

Spumante Dolce fends off VJ’s Angel and Quid Pro Quo. (JC Photos)

The new darling of the SA turf, Quid Pro Quo, was beaten into third in the Gr 2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas to the shock of many.

However, for Mike and Matthew de Kock it was a dream start to their partnership as their Vercingetorix filly Spumante Dolce pulled off a win full of class to make it three wins from three starts.

In only their second meeting as an official partnership, Spumante Dolce was the De Kock father and son combination’s first winner.

She could not have been a more fitting winner.

She is out of a mare Mike selected overseas at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale of 2011 together with Jehan Malherbe for 130,000 Guineas on behalf of Mary Slack of Wilgersbosdrift Stud.

The British-bred Dansili mare Espumanti not only won two Gr 2s herself, but she gave Slack her first Hollywoodbets Durban July winner as an owner with her De Kock-trained homebred Silvano daughter, Sparkling Water.

Spumante Dolce is a Wilgerbosdrift and Mauritzfontein homebred herself and is raced by Slack in partnership with Bradley Ralphs.

It was most fitting that Spumante Dolce’s first black type success was in a race sponsored by Wilgerbosdrift Stud.

Spumante Dolce did not have cover throughout the race after jumping well and assuming a position in second place on the quarters of the pacemaker Vulcanite. However, Raymond Danielson had her nicely relaxed.

When the pacemaker fell away she powered into the lead.

It seemed the big filly had hit the front too soon down the long Turffontein Standside straight.

Danielson thought so himself and said later she had had to work hard.

Quid Pro Quo and the Gr 1-winning VJ’s Angel bore down on her in the last furlong.

However, the big filly found another gear to repel them and beat VJ’s Angel by 0,25 lengths, converting odds of 7/1,  with the 4/10 favourite Quid Pro Quo beaten half-a-length into third.

The Gauteng Fillies Guineas is the first leg of the Wilgerbosdrift Triple Tiara series and Danielson’s words afterwards, when asked about Spumante Dolce’s Triple Tiara credentials, were telling.

Firstly, he spoke about the race having not panned out perfectly and he added, “The scarey thing is she is still a puppy compared to them (to VJ’s Angel and Quid Pro Quo).”

Quid Pro Quo had sat closer to the back than the front after jumping from a tricky draw of ten out of 13, but she had cover throughout.

VJ’s Angel was dropped out from an even wider draw and was one from last turning for home.

VJ’s Angel weaved her way through and was right there challenging at the line, while Quid Pro Quo had moved up like a winner, considering Spumante Dolce had been in front for a long time.

However, the big filly found another gear to repel them.

Piere Strydom said Quid Pro Quo had not moved up as well this time as she had when winning the Betway Dingaans.

Mike de Kock said on what they had tried at home they knew Spumante Dolce was way way better than her official 89 merit rating and he said they had measured it to be “well above 110, 112.”

He viewed her as a Triple Tiara candidate as he didn’t believe she would have a problem staying 2450m.

Callmegetrix (closest) helped Vercingetorix extend his big lead in the national sires championship (he is now just short of R5 million in front). (Picture: Wayne Marks)

Graeme Hawkins (Gold Circle)

Callmegetrix was all heart as she rallied bravely over the final 100m to deny the well-backed Goodnessgraciousme by a head in Saturday’s R180 000 Clapham Stakes over 1600m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth. Callmegetrix was allowed to drift to 7/2 in the face of strong on-course demand for Goodnessgraciousme who shortened from 33/10 into 11/10 and then did everything but win.

Callmegetrix took up the running shortly after the start and was still travelling well within herself at the top of the straight. Goodgraciousme was tracking her every move and when Richard Fourie pressed the button halfway up the stretch, the 3yo daughter of Gimmethegreenlight quickened smartly and victory seemed assured. Goodnessgraciousme moved a length clear of her market rival at the 300m pole, but Callmegetrix was not done for yet, and Candice Bass-Robinson’s 4yo daughter of Vercingetorix responded well to JP van der Merwe’s powerful urgings, rallying strongly to reclaim the advantage in the shadow of the post.

Owned and bred by Mario Ferreira, Callmegetrix registered her fourth career victory on Saturday and boosted her earnings to above the R500 000 mark. She has been a model of consistency throughout her career and from 15 racetrack appearances has yet to miss the money in any of her starts. In her post-race interview Bass-Robinson was full of praise for Callmegetrix and expressed the hope that she could yet earn some pedigree boosting black-type before being retired to the paddocks.

Having only her fifth lifetime start, Goodnessgraciousme was far from disgraced in defeat and Justin Snaith has high hopes for her going forward. She is likely to reappear in a 3yo Fillies Feature on Derby Day towards the end of this month and is one for the notebook. My Flower Fate stayed on nicely from the rear of the field to complete the Trifecta with Fun Zone making up the frame.

Saturday’s Pick 6 dividend of R3934-80 is clear evidence that punters enjoyed the better of exchanges at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth, despite a rocky start. Wild Applause (1/3) was expected to take the opener in her stride under Louis Burke in the Work Riders’ Maiden Plate over 1100m, but she was always labouring and could no better than finish a remote third behind Indebe Mayibuye (20/1) and the fast-finishing Blue Ribbon Day (33/1).

Ossie Noach picked up the ride for Vaughan Marshall on the newcomer Ireland Forever in the second race, a Maiden Juvenile Plate over 1000m, and the 2yo son of Rafeef justified his position at the top of the betting boards with a fluent victory over Cliffscape. The well related Indigenous blew the start and was very green in running, but was only two lengths in arrears of the winner at the line and is likely to improve significantly with this run under his belt.

Scottish Links (14/10) was all the rage in the third race, an Open Maiden over 1400m, and under a copybook ride from Louis Mxothwa, the 3yo gelded son of What A Winter shed his maiden ticket in some style at the fifth time of asking. Dricus showed good improvement in his first start as a gelding to fill the runner-up berth and is one to keep an eye on.

After losing out on Ireland Forever in the second race, Sean Veale arrived at the course on time for his engagement in the fourth race, an Open Maiden (F&M) over 1200m. Riding Happy Wives (9/4) for Hollywood Racing, Veale immediately took the daughter of Canford Cliffs to the lead and the pair were never headed. Beneath The Clouds (9/2) chased hard over the final 200m but Happy Wives had more than a length to spare at the line. Sugarbush (5/2) had shown promise on her debut last month but failed to fire on Saturday and was beaten out of the frame.

The fifth race, a D Stakes over 1200m, produced a thrilling finish with ever consistent Electric Feels (3/1) just holding out True Horizon (7/2) by a nose. Gravity (9/4) and Lovers Lane (16/1) completed the Quartet with only half-a-length covering them at the winning post.

The Harold Crawford/Michelle Rix training team completed a quick race-to-race double when Elusive Winter (28/10) kept up a resolute gallop to take top honours in the sixth race, a Cape B Stakes over 1000m. Porque Te Vas tried to match strides with Elusive Winter from the jump but she ran out of puff close home and it was left to Blue Holly (10/1) to chase Elusive Winter home. Following the scratching of The Abdicator, Kelp Forest was sent out a warm order favourite but he never posed a threat and trailed in a distant fourth.

Race 8, a Cape D Stakes over 1600m, yielded another very exciting finish between two long-time maidens Golden Grey and Cosmic Rhythm. The pair locked horns at the 200m pole and the result was in the balance until the very last stride, but Cosmic Rhythm put his nose down where it matters most to give Ossie Noach a welcome double for the day.

Unheralded Craig Bantam gets a lovely tune out of the Adam Marcus-trained Dream Searcher (11/2) and the 4yo daughter of Erupt made it back-to-back wins in the ninth race, a Class 5 Handicap (F&M) over 1400m. From a good position turning for home, Dream Searcher took control of the race approaching the final 200m and stretched away to win full of running. Vivo Per Lei stayed on for second and she could open her account in similarly weak company in the not-too-distant future.

Ryan Munger has been in fine form and made no mistake on William Robertson in the Marula Sprint. (Candiese Lenferna Photography)

Cape Breeders

Ridgemont’s G1 Computaform Sprint winning sire Rafeef had another good weekend.

Not only did the son of Redoute’s Choice come up with a pair of winners on Friday, but Rafeef also came up with an impressive two-year-old winner on Saturday, while his son William Robertson captured the Marula Sprint (Non-Black Type) at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday.

Top-class six-year-old William Robertson defied 62.5 kgs to win the Marula Sprint in facile fashion. Under Ryan Munger, the Corne Spies trained gelding raced up with the pace early on before powering away to score as he liked by just over a length and a quarter.

Bred by Ridgemont Highlands, William Robertson has won 13 of 40 starts, with William Robertson having won three of his past five starts.

William Robertson, out of the Trippi mare Massachusetts, is a proven top-level performer with the gelding having triumphed in the 2022 G2 Topbet Mike O’Connor Joburg Spring Challenge and 2022 Tony Ruffel Stakes.

His versatile sire Rafeef also looks to have a very promising two-year-old in the form of Ireland Forever. The latter made a winning debut when victorious at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday.

Trained by Vaughan Marshall, Ireland Forever made a big splash when he stormed home, under Oswald Noach, to win the Cape Turf Club Syndicates Maiden Juvenile Plate (1000m) by a length and a half.

Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Ireland Forever is out of the Fort Wood mare Erin. The colt was a R1 450 000 buy from the 2024 National Yearling Sale.

South Africa’s Leading First Season Sire of 2020-2021, Rafeef, who has been responsible for three stakes winners this season, is sixth on the General Sires premiership.

Rachel Venniker and Carl Hewitson with Aspoestertjie – the first leg of a double for Hewitson (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)

Friday evening’s entertaining, albeit shortened, Hollywoodbets Greyville night racemeeting is scheduled to be the penultimate fixture run on the often maligned polytrack, before the all-weather circuit undergoes the most significant overhaul in its decade of service to KZN racing, writes The Sporting Post.

The Gold Circle promotional blurb is ‘night time is the right time’, and there is no question that with a buzz on course, a happy crowd enjoyed themselves in advance of the weekend, although winners were hard to come by on a card riddled with longshots – and then after the sixth race, the unscripted disruption to the Municipal power supply to the course torpedoed what was a great evening.

After a significant delay, and no sign of the power supply being restored, a decision was taken to abandon the remainder of the race meeting (Races 7 and 8).

Summerveld trainer Carl Hewitson was an early contributor to the testing conditions for favourites backers, saddling a 400-1 double, as he winds down in preparation for a new career challenge in Mauritius.

Aspoestertjie (Rachel Hewitson, 11-2) and Notable (Serino Moodley, 50-1) were the two Hewitson strikes.

Launched in 2014 to much fanfare as the answer to Mother Nature’s often unpredictable mood swings in the holiday province, the Hollywoodbets Greyville polytrack has enjoyed a love-hate relationship with a wide spectrum of stakeholders.

Against the backdrop of the acquisition of Gold Circle (Pty) Ltd by Hollywood Racing Enterprises (Pty) Ltd, which is still subject to final ratification by the KwaZulu-Natal Economic Regulatory Authority, but has already seen a new era of increased stakes, incentives, improved and simplified race programming, as well as operational and information add-ons, including weighing of horses and branded saddle-cloths in work, the biggest move to enhance the landscape of the new dawn will be the revitalization of the polytrack through a dual-phase overhaul which commences on 17 February.

Gold Circle Racing Executive Raf Sheik surveys the polytrack before it undergoes long overdue maintenance later this month (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)

“During phase 1 the polytrack will be lifted, the base examined, and repairs carried out where necessary. We have set aside two weeks for this process,” explained Gold Circle Racing Executive Raf Sheik, who is on a committee tasked with ensuring an expeditious and seamless upgrade.

Sheik went on to say that in phase 2 a gel will be sprayed on the entire track.

This will apparently take up approximately six days and will be effected in March, dependant on the delivery of the materials.

“Once completed, we can look forward to three to four years of high quality and fair racing on a polytrack that will play an important role in ensuring that we have diversified and year round racing product for all of our stakeholders to enjoy,” concluded Sheik.

Night racing returns to Hollywoodbets Greyville on the polytrack on Friday 7 February for what will effectively be a farewell to the old surface. There probably won’t be too many tears in anticipation of better days ahead!

The racing programme naturally remains fluid and is subject to change.

Paul Townend celebrates on board Galopin Des Champs after winning the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup on day four of the Festival in 2023. (Spicture: Sky Sports Racing). 

Our Gallic cousins have a race programme that is geared towards starting horses off early over jumps and we are missing a trick, writes Charlie Brooks for the Daily Telegraph in England

Galopin Des Champs, who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup for a second consecutive year in 2024, is registered as a French-bred Credit: Michael Steele/Getty Images
The biggest talking point around the Cheltenham Festival will be, as it has been for the past few years, the extraordinary number of winners trained in Ireland. But that fixation misses a wider point: where the best horses are actually produced.

Who trains the most winners at the Festival has always been down to socio-economic factors, as opposed to the relative merits of the trainers on either side of the Irish sea. It comes down to money.

For decades, Britain had a stronger economy than Ireland and no matter how good trainers like champion Arthur Moore were, they generally had to sell their best horses to Britain, such was the power of the cheque book.

But that all changed with the Celtic Tiger economy in 1995 and the Irish trainers have not looked back. There was a crash in 2007, but their government understood how to attract inward investment and grow the economy. And on they marched.

So Willie Mullins now has owners who will spend more money filling up the boxes in his yard than his rivals in Britain do. Not that we should be feeling too sorry for those at the top of the tree in Britain.

Dan Skelton, who observed recently that “we can’t just magic horses out of nowhere”, is currently top of the leaderboard in Britain. He has run 230 horses this season from a training facility that has about 140 stables. Maybe it should be called an Airbnb rather than a yard?

The great irony is, however, that it is now the French who are consistently producing the champions, not Ireland. At the Cheltenham Festival last year alone, they produced eight Grade One winners, including the Gold Cup winner Galopin Des Champs.

I use the word produce, rather than bred, because this success is probably more because of nurture than nature. The French break in their jump-racing thoroughbreds when they are two and have a racing programme that encourages them to race over hurdles at three. A quick analysis of this year’s French-bred entries in the Gold Cup, the Champion Chase and the Ryanair Chase reveals that 25 out of 34 of them in these races raced as three-year-olds in France, before being sold to Ireland and the UK. And the overwhelming majority of the nine that did not, left France by the time they were three.

The Irish and English-bred horses, however, show a very different trend. Thirty-eight of them have been entered in the same top three chases at the Festival, and yet none of them ran at three. Twenty-eight of them ran at four, predominantly in Irish point-to-points.

There was a very talented equine physiotherapist in Lambourn in the 1980s called Mary Bromiley. None of this would have been a mystery to her. She once explained to me that young horses are no different to human babies. “Their tissues absorb knowledge and experience like a sponge… so young tissue properly conditioned will respond better than older tissue,” she said.

I have no doubt that she turns in her grave every year when the cream of the Irish National Hunt breed are sold at two sales in Ireland as chubby, unbroken three-year-olds; 850 of them last year.

Ironically, a significant percentage of these horses come from French families. But what is the logic of removing French-bred horses from a production system that works so well to place them into a system that is underperforming?

It is a chicken-and-egg problem. On the one hand there are not enough three-year-old hurdle races for National Hunt-bred horses to contest in Ireland and Britain, so no one produces horses for those races. And it is not really practical to produce those horses in Ireland or Britain if they have to go to France to race.

Do not expect British trainers to fare better at Cheltenham any time soon. In fact, I expect them to do a lot worse. By the time thousands of non-dom potential investors have been driven out of the UK, National Insurance rises have escalated costs in a very labour-intensive industry and Inheritance Tax hikes have killed off family training yards, it will be a miracle if anyone is still training horses in this country by the time everyone has woken up to the French system.

Which filly bought for a then record price of 5,500 Guineas won the 1000 Guineas, Oaks and St. Leger and was unlucky in the Derby?

The subject is pictured above.