Taxi To The Moon secured a feature double for Vercingetorix over the weekend when winning the Gr 3 Betway Lebelo Sprint under Gavin Lerena and it was a third successive win in the race for the Tony Peter yard (JC Photos)
The main feature on the day at Turffontein on Saturday was the Gr 3 Lebelo Handicap over 1000m, a race the Tony Peter yard were out to land for the third time in succession.
They had the two favourites, Taxi To The Moon and Pistol Pete, and it was the former, an Oldlands Stud-bred four-year-old gelding, who gave the phenomenal Champion Sire Vercingetorix his second stakes winner of the weekend (his daughter Ladyofdistinction had won the Listed Flamboyant Stakes over 1600m at Hollywoodbets on Friday).
Taxi To The Moon, ridden by Gavin Lerena, was carrying 57kg off a 110 merit rating and saw off Truth (61.5kg) in a stirring battle for the line to win by 0,50 lengths with Pistol Pete (61,5kg) a further 0,30 lengths back in third.
Taxi To The Moon races for Kestorm Investments and in landing the 2025 Lebelo Sprint (a race in which he had finished fifth in 2024), he took his career tally to five wins from 17 outings. It was his first black type victory.
The gelding, runner up in the last two runnings of the Listed Allied Steelrode Golden Loom Handicap, is out of the Indigo Magic mare Earn A Moon and is thus bred on the same cross as the Oldlands bred G1 Gold Medallion winner Ambiorix.
Taxi To The Moon was a R1 million purchase at the Race Coast Sales Premier Yearling Sale.
Taxi To The Moon was one of three winners at Turffontein on Saturday for Vercingetorix.
The Alyson Wright yard are in flying form at present and not only lead the KZN Trainers Championship but also landed a Listed race at Turffontein Standside on Saturday with the well-related Gimmethegreenlight filly Charge It.
The Wright-trained Varsfontein homebred Charge It is a full-sister to Surcharge, a Gr 1 winner in both South Africa and Australia, and after being backed in from 6/1 to 9/4 for the War Of Athena Handicap over 1800m at Turffontein on Saturday she produced a fine turn of foot under Muzi Yeni to win the R225,000 event by 1,25 lengths from Soldier’s Eye and Gerbera. It was the Gimmethegreenlight filly’s fifth career start and her second win, but more importantly her first black type success. She had finished second in the Gr 3 Ducat Africa Fillies Mile at Turffontein Standside on Betway Summer Cup day at odds of 100/1 in her previous start and in the War Of Athena, as the only three-year-old in the contest, she carried 52,5kg off a 93 merit rating.
Earlier, the Non-Black Type Sophomore 1000 was won by the Mike and Mathew de Kock-trained Avontuur Thoroughbred Farm-bred What A Winter colt Constellation, who has now won four of eight starts. The filly Anchorage challenged late and looked likely to come second before trying to take a bite out of the winner, forcing Muzi Yeni to snatch her up and this handed second place to Charming Cheetah.
The meeting was cut short due to lightning with only seven of the ten races completed and the day’s winners included the Sean Tarry-trained 110-rated Vercingetorix filly Callmegetrix, who easily accounted for The Equator in a Pinnacle Stakes event over 1600m, winning by 3,20 lengths under Mickaelle Michel, who has now had four wins since arriving in SA at the beginning of December.
Vercingetorix’s other winner on the day was the Candice and Tammy Dawson-trained five-year-old gelding Plus Four, who won a Mr 96 Handicap over 1000m under Rachel Venniker.
