Fish Eagle secured a four-timer for both the Hollywood Syndicate and Richard Fourie and clinched a big payday for a Hollywoodbets team member (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
The Hollywood Syndicate scored the first four-timer of their owning career on the Hollywodbets Greyville poly on Tuesday and a team member of theirs won a life-changing amount when selecting eight winners in eight races for the Hollywoodbets Punters Challenge.
Richard Fourie also scored an individual four-timer and was aboard three of the Hollywood winners.
The MJ Odendaal-trained three-year-old Querari gelding Griffin Park is an effective front-runner, so the writing was on the wall for the others when Richard Fourie managed to get to the lead from a pole position draw. He kept him going to score by 0,60 lengths from another Hollywood runner, Purple Powahousehorse. Griffin Park converted odds of 15/10.
In the fourth race the Gareth van Zyl-trained Zinikele drew a good comment from her trainer in the morning, who said on his much appreciated social media racemeeting comments message: “Zinikele is one to consider. With the blinkers off there is a chance that she goes well over the 1800m trip.” The Gimmethegreenlight four-year-old jumped from draw three and was settled in the last three of the nine horse field by Ant Mgudlwa. She turned for home still in the last three, but the tall filly did indeed enjoy the trip and galloped strongly down the inside to win by half-a-length at 16/1 odds from Danse Milord with the favourite Petit Verdot in third.
In the fifth race over 1900m the five-year-old gelding Allaroundtheworld has been an overall disappointment considering his breeding, by Oasis Dream out of Gr 1 winner Same Jurisdiction. Hollywood took over the ownership from his breeders Drakenstein Stud after he had had seven runs and he eventually won a race about nine months later. Today the Gary Rich-trained gelding made it three career wins and a second win in succession as he led from start to finish under Fourie to win by 3,50 lengths. He is a nice looking horse and has a nice actio and the apparent key to this new lease on life has been a step up to middle distances so he should have more to come.
When the eighth race started there was one man in KZN whose adrenalin would have particularly been surging. “SthaXulu”, had selected seven out of seven winners in the Hollywoodbets Punters Challenge and stood to win a cool R385,000 if he got an 8th. The jackpot for a team member has a pool made up of 5,000 for each of the runners at the meeting, as opposed to R10 per runner for the public pool.
SthaXulu was on the Clinton Binda-trained Fish Eagle in the last over 1400m and Fourie was up. Fourie managed to get the blinkered four-year-old Rafeef gelding on to the rail in front from draw three. In the straight he was challenged by Lucky Dollar but Fourie kept him going to win by 0,40 lengths to make it a life-changing day for SthaXulu.
It was fitting a Binda-trained horses clinched the milestone four-timer for Hollywood, because he has been their winning-most trainer.
Hollywood have as usual had the most wins this season on the owners table,’
They are now on 73 wins for the season and should pass the record they set last season of 124.
However, in their bid for a first owners championship they are about R1.8 million behind title holders Drakenstein Stud.
