Asiye Phambili lands the SA Fillies Sprint with a powerful late run (Picture: Race Coast)
A Gr 1-winning seven-year-old mare would usually be packed off to stud, but the Duncan Howells-trained What A Winter mare Asiye Phambili showed on World Pool Gold Cup day she still has the wherewithal and the zest to compete at the highest level.
It took a while for her to see daylight in the Gr 1 wfa Mercury Sprint over 1200m, but when she did she took off and the powerfully built mare stormed home to be beaten just 1,40 lengths.
She gave the champion owners Hollywood Racing their local highlight of the 2025/2026 season when winning the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Scottsville.
She seemed too far out of her ground in that race at the halfway mark and she then had to switch inward into going that had been perceived as inferior the whole day, and yet she still managed to power home to beat the champion mare Double Grand Slam by a neck.
Two years previously Howells had been supremely confident of winning the SA Fillies Sprint, but she pecked and dumped her jockey at the jump.
Then last year her late charge came a short-head too late.
So, it was a thoroughly deserved win this year.
She also won the Gr 3 WSB Southern Cross Stakes last season and the Gr 3 Poinsettia Stakes on top of finishing fourth in the Gr 1 wfa World Pool Cape Flying Championship.
Her Mercury Sprint third was a repeat of her third in that same race last year and she has done it from draws of eleven and seven respectively.
She looks capable of adding further Gr 1s at the ripe age of seven.
She is a horse who just seems to get better and better every season.
To emphasise how powerfully built she is, she was the third heaviest horse in the whole meeting on World Pool Gold Cup day.
KZN’s galloping tank can do Hollywood Racing proud again.
