Golden Peace finds extra late on Sunday (Picture: Candiese Lenferna)
There were a couple of eyecatching performances by three-year-olds at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday, including by the lightly raced Gareth van Zyl-trained Gold Standard gelding Golden Peace.
This gelding caught the eye second time out over 1400m on the Hollywoodbets Greyville turf having made a decent debut over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth for Gavin van Zyl.
In that second start he was green around the turn, but stayed on in the straight and then found another gear late to pull away and win by 1,50 lengths.
It was a similar story on Sunday.
Running off an 80 merit rating, he had a tricky draw of eight to overcome. Athandiwe Mgudlwa took him handy but he then had to run one out and one back without cover.
Therefore, it was commendable that once again he found an extra gear when it counted late in the day to win by 0,70 lengths from the Peter Muscutt-trained Aurora Storm (Gimmethegreenlight), to whom he gave 1kg.
Golden Peace is clearly looking for further, but Van Zyl said he had had one or two issues and he was not going to be looking at a feature campaign this season. He can be followed until beaten.
Golden peace runs in the colours of Laurence Wernars, but is also owned by a long-time supporter of the Gavin van Zyl yard Errol Budlender as well as by Team G Racing. Gareth inherited all of his father Gavin’s horses upon the latter’s recent retirement and Golden Peace could be one of the more exciting ones among them.
The favourite in Sunday’s race, the Vaughan Marshall-trained Professor Snape (William Longsword), can also be followed. He carried topweight of 60kg, so gave the winner half-a-kilogram, and was a touch unlucky as he was unable to find a clear run in the closing strages. He had to settle for fifth place.
Earlier, the Peter Muscutt-trained Noble Tune gelding Noble City, coming off a win and a third in his first two career starts at Kenilworth, pulled away in impressive fashion in a 1400m MR 92 handicap running off an 88 merit rating to record an easy 2,10 length victory. He could go on to bigger things.
