Chantilly Dream could be one to follow (JC Photos)
The Vaal had a low key meeting today, but two to take out of it were the Potala Palace three-year-old gelding Palace Attack and the Gimmethegreenlight three-year-old filly Chantilly Dream.
Palace Attack is a half-brother and stablemate to the Alec Laird-trained Gr 1-winning stalwart Fire Attack (Fire Away) and he is a good looking sort who was having his fourth start in a Maiden Plate over 1400m.
He broke well from a middle draw under Calvin Habib and was angled towards the outside, where the going tends to be better when the outside rail is at zero metres, and was in the leading line before slotting in behind Amandla Ngawethu, who led down the middle-outside. The latter shifted on to the outside rail and Habib stayed straight to hit the front at the 300m mark and the horse stayed on resolutely to beat the much improved Beach Walker by 0,70 lengths. The well-backed Vercingetorix first-timer Bellerophon, a half-brother to mutiple winners Solar Sail and Wings Within Me, was beaten three lengths into third.
Palace Attack, who is out of the Mambo In Seattle mare Bonnie Beers, is owned by the same partners who own Fire Attack, Messrs G C Cornwall, G A Basel, L Clark & Canine Solutions CC (Nom: Mr D C O’Driscoll), and whilst he is unlikely to be as good as the latter he should win more races.
In the next race, also over 1400m, Chantilly Dream had caught the eye on debut and was backed into 2/1 favourite. The Lucky Houdalakis-trained Dave Shawe-owned Gimmethegreenlight filly sat behind the leader on the outside rail before Craig Zackey asked the question and she had assumed command by the 500m mark. She went on to win by 2,60 lengths in a time of 84 seconds flat, which was 0,74 seconds slower than Palace Attack’s time. She should pay to follow.
