Gimme A Nother obliterates the field once again with her devastating late burst (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Horse Chestnut was without a doubt the greatest of the quartet of horses who landed the Triple Crown and a horse running in the same colours, Gimme A Nother, might soon be challenging Igugu as the greatest to have won the Triple Tiara. However, that is only if she runs in and wins the Triple Tiara, because Mike de Kock said after her Gr 1 win on Saturday she might go for the Gr 1 Empress Club Stakes instead of the last leg of the Triple Tiara, the Gr 2 SA Oaks.
Horse Chesnut and Igugu were also from the yard of the legendary De Kock, who also landed the Triple Crown with Malmoos.
The yellow and black colours of Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer that Horse Chestnut carried are these days raced by the Mauritzfontein Stud that the famous couple founded.
The latter is now being run by their granddaughter Jessica Jell and her husband Steven.
These colours have been carried to Triple Tiara glory already by two Mauritzfontein Stud homebreds, Tiger Ridge filly Cherry On The Top and Silvano filly Summer Pudding.
Neither of those two can be considered as good as the Australian-bred Galileo filly Igugu, because the latter went on to become only the sixth horse in history to land the July-Met double.
However, such is the consummate ease with which Gimme A Nother despatched the opposition in the first two legs of the Triple Tiara, she could not only become the sixth horse to land the Triple Tiara but she could also go on to challenge Igugu’s unofficial title as the best Triple Tiara winner.
South Africa’s new darling of the turf sat handier than her previous race in Saturday’s Gr 1 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Classic under ice cool JP van der Merwe. She moved up steadily in the straight and then, as usual, took off late to obliterate them by 4,25 lengths.
Her time was 0,41 seconds slower than Purple Pitcher’s, but one can only win and she beats them easily every time and does it more impressively everytime.
The Wilgerbosdrift and Mauritzfontein-bred and Mauritzfontein-owned homebred has now won six on the trot.
She has Triple Tiara heroine Summer Pudding’s feat of winning her first nine races in her sights. The South African record unbeaten trot is eleven by Home Guard, which he clinched in 1969, and Gimme A Nother might challenge that record too.
Gimme A Nother’s stablemate Silver Sanctuary is fast becoming the Pablo Zeta of this year’s fillies crop. The latter was the bridesmaid to the great Horse Chestnut and the Drakenstein Stud homebred Silver Sanctuary has likewise seen the same yellow and black colours in front of her for the second successive Triple Tiara event. With that in mind there will also be the question of whether De Kock can achieve a Triple Tiara of exactas, i.e. first and second in all three legs of the Triple Tiara.
Let’s Go Now, Bavarian Beauty and Beating Wings were third, fourth and fifth respectively in Saturday’s SA Fillies Classic.
Gold Circle compiled the post race comments into text (see below):
MIKE de KOCK (trainer): “It’s nice to have these horses but they do add years on your life. I’m getting a bit old for these types of things these days! When you’re a young buck and a bit more ‘ballsey’, you deal with it a bit more. There was obviously a lot of expectation, but when you have a filly like this, it’s natural to feel nervous that she’s going to do her best, but she just does. She turns up here and makes us look good. At the 400 today, she looked like she was going nowhere, but she can do that in work as well. As you ask her, it like there’re jets ignited. It looks like she might be better than the grandmother (Mother Russia) who was very good and so was her mother (Nother Russia). She still has to take on older horses before we get carried away. I’m not convinced about ‘The Oaks’, as there is ‘The Empress Club’ on the same day, which is a group 1 over the mile, which looks a more enticing prospect for me. At this stage of the game, I think we have to concentrate on the group 1 races, but we won’t make those decisions now’.MARY SLACK: “She’s something out of this world. Jessica is in America, but apparently, she was already on the champagne at breakfast! She is beside herself. This is truly a family affair as she bought the dam (Nother Russia) from me, as I own the granddam (Mother Russia), so it’s all beautifully connected”.