Beach Bomb can only manage fifth place as favourite in the Gr 2 Beverly D Stakes at Colonial Downs on Saturday as Charlene’s Dream (Qurbaan) wins impressively after going fast from the start (via youtube)
At Colonial Downs on Saturday the Graham Motion-trained South African-bred pair Isivunguvungu and Beach Bomb ran disappointing respective races.
The Narrow Creek Stud-bred Hollywood Racing-owned What A Winter gelding Isivunguvungu ran in the US$150,000 Van Clief Stakes over five-and-a-half furlongs and was one of the fancied runners. It was initially encouraging to see him settling well in a position off the pace within striking distance as he has a terrific turn of foot but tends to be a bit headstrong. Fans were no doubt anticipating him mowing the field down having seemingly preserved his energy, but instead he found little and could only manage sixth place.
It could only be interpreted as a flat run and this view was possibly confirmed when the Drakenstein Stud homebred Lancaster Bomber mare Beach Bomb failed to fire as the favourite in the US$500,000 Beverly D Stakes over one mile and one-and-a-half furlongs. She lay in third place behind two runaway pacemakers, but one of the latter managed to stay on to win and Beach Bomb, after making up some ground, faded late into a disappointing fifth place.
The two runs has put a dampener on the Breeders Cup aspirations of the SA-bred pair.
However, it will be interesting to hear how they pulled up, because they did not seem themselves and can hopefully bounce back.
