Frikkie Greyling leads in Hurricane Cat with Deryl Daniels up (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Frikkie Greyling had a winner on the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly today (Wednesday), his first winner since renewing his training license.
Greyling and Deryl Daniels have a long association, having both been attached to the Glen Kotzen Summerveld yard for a number of years, and Daniels also works the Greyling string so it was fitting that he brought home the three-year-old Var filly Hurricane Cat.
The small filly had run three places before and always looked likely to enjoy the poly as she has a lot of early pace.
She did benefit from the favourite Sun In My Pocket losing many lengths at the start and as the latter was beaten only 2,65 lengths in the end it might have been a different result had she started on terms.
However, as it happened Hurricane Cat jumped well and Daniels used her pace from draw two to secure the rail.
She turned for home in the lead together with Blowin’ In The Wind and Queen Of Ice.
However, unlike at Hollywoodbets Scottsville where she was found wating late, she kept going well this time and won by a cosy 1,10 lengths.
Greyling is training out of Blue Sky Thoroughbreds’ second farm, which used to be called Yellow Star Stud, and had his first runner back in February.
He is training the Blue Sky Thoroughbreds’ racing string for the owners of the stud operation Tinus Gericke and Bruce le Roux, including the horses they own and bred individually and the ones they own and bred in partnership.
Hurricane Cat i a homebred of Tinus Gericke’s.
Today was only the 13th runner Greyling has had since starting out with Bluesky, although six of those runs have been by Hurricane Cat.
Greyling thanked a number of people after today’s success and admitted the win meant a lot to him.
It was not the first win of Greyling’s training career.
He won two races with National Icon in Dubai in the February and March of 2005 when training in partnership with Dean Maroun and his first official winner as a trainer was Mariner on 11 May 2005 at Scottsville, three days after being granted his license.
Greyling has a wealth of experience as a former jockey who has been assistant to some of the top trainers in the country, on top of being a former licensed trainer himself.
He came out of his time as an apprentice in 1992 and rode for about six more years before weight problems forced him to retire.
However, he was snapped up by Mike de Kock, for whom he had ridden a few winners.
Shortly after he joined De Kock the great Horse Chestnut arrived and Greyling became his chief workrider as well as his babysitter.
He slept at the yard before big races as part of the security measure surrounding the superstar.
He also travelled with him on his American sojourn.
Greyling also traveled to Dubai with the like of Victory Moon and Ipi Tombe.
It was shortly thereafter that he had a stint as a trainer in Dubai in partnership with Dean Maroun before coming back to SA and being granted his trainer’s license.
Greyling later worked as assistant to Glen Kotzen at Summerveld, where he ran the satellite yard in the off season, and he played a role in the July win of Big City Life.
He has also worked for Mike and Adam Azzie and others.
He is known as a fine horseman, who has a rapport with animals of all varieties, and he has a strong work ethic.
