Candice Bass-Robinson landed a second Graded feature of the Champions Season when Grant van Niekerk brought the Potala Palace filly Red Palace home in the Gr 2 Riding High Together Gold Bracelet over 2000m. (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
The Bass yard have a proud record of plundering KZN’s big races for close to 50 years and this season Candice Bass-Robinson kept it up despite only contesting five races in the entire Champions Season with just four runners.
She had three fillies at Hollywoodbets Scottsville’s Festival Of Speed meeting and returned a win in the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint with October Morn (Trippi), a race in which Winter Cloud (What A Winter) ran sixth, and a 0,40 length third place finish in the Gr 1 Allan Robertson with Symphony In White (What A Winter).
Then on Sunday at the World Pool Gold Cup meeting her Potala Palace filly Red Palace made up for her unplaced run in the Gr 1 Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes by winnning the Gr 2 Riding High Together Gold Bracelet, although Grant van Niekerk would have given the connections of the Terry and Annabel Andrews homebred filly some anxious moments by dropping his hands before the line.
Bass-Robinson was the 15th highest stakes earner during the Champions Saeson despite having just those five runs.
Her firepower was diminished by the retirement of the superstar colt Charles Dickens after his Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate victory and the departure of dual Gr 1 winner Beach Bomb as well as Gr 3 winners Distant Winter and Golden Hostess to the USA.
Cape Breeders write that Ridgemont’s G1-winning stallion Potala Palace had a good day at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Sunday because not only did Potala Palace filly Red Palace land the Gold Bracelet, but another daughter of Potala Palace, Frozen Fantasy, ran third in the G1 Douglas Whyte Stakes.
Three-year-old Red Palace was backed down from 7-1 into 5-2 for Sunday’s R500 000 contest and she duly obliged.
Van Niekerk had Red Palace stalking the leader Lady Of Power two lengths off the gallop. Into the home run, Rascova moved past the leader and dashed for glory, with Van Niekerk making his run down the middle.
With her beautiful stride, Red Palace sailed past Rascova and was going away – that’s until Van Niekerk erred, dropping his hands just metres from the line.
Despite the mistake, Red Palace hung on to win by a diminishing neck from the Andre Nel-trained Saartjie.
The Glen Kotzen-trained Rascova made it an eighth Graded placed run this season, added to her two Gr 2 wins, by finishing a 2,40 length third.
None Other was a 5,30 length fourth and Beating Wings finished a 5,55 length fifth, a shorthead in front of Gilded Butterfly.
Runner-up in the G1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas and winner of the Listed Stormsvlei Stakes, Red Palace has now won three of 13 starts and has earned R707 637 in stakes.
Bred by Terry Andrews, Red Palace is out of the Jay Peg mare In Limine.
She is owned by Mr & Mrs T D Andrews, Messrs M F Bass & C A F Goncalves & Mr H G & Mrs N S C Breydenbach & Mrs C L Bass-Robinson.
Himself winner of the G1 Premier’s Champion Stakes, Potala Palace is also sire of the smart two-year-old Frozen Fantasy. The latter won on debut and built on that when running a creditable third in Sunday’s G1 Douglas Whyte Stakes.
Frozen Fantasy joins the likes of Bourbon Warrior, Family Law, and Surge Of Power as promising winners for Potala Palace this season.
From the family of Sadler’s Wells, Nureyev and Fairy King, Potala Palace is a son of Singspiel, whose sire In The Wings is also paternal grandsire of Goliath -winner of the 2024 G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes.
Potala Palace has three lots on offer at the 2024 BSA August Two Year Old Sale.
