Bella Siccome being led in after winning a second successive Non-Black Type feature (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Summerveld trainer Paul Lafferty is having a fair trot lately and his Silvano mare Bella Siccome has become the nemesis of the useful Cape Eagle.
However, it is the near future Paul is particularly looking forward to because at present he has the most amount of two-year-olds he has ever had as a trainer and he said they included horses by “every top stallion”.
Lafferty has had 12 wins this season and five of them have been for increasingly prominent owner John Finlayson, who has had eleven wins this season, the other six, including the exciting prospect Melech, being trained by Roy Magner on the Highveld.
So things are looking up for long-time trainer Lafferty, although having that amount of two-year-olds also brings its concerns.
One of his biggest bugbears is how high young winners end up in the merit ratings and he talks about that emotive subject in this newsletter (see next article).
Bella Siccome won the Non-Black Type Michael Roberts Stakes over 1750m, beating Cape Eagle by a length receiving 9kg, and she followed up by winning the Non-Black Type Umthombothi Stakes over 1950m, beating Cape Eagle by a shorthead when once again receiving 9kg.
Both of those races were at Hollywoodbets Scottsville and Muzi Yeni and Siphesihle Hlengwa were the respective winning riders.
Lafferty said, “It’s difficult because she can win minor features, but when she steps up it’s a tougher call. We’ve basically taken what’s available now and in the season I might look at the Track And Ball Oaks again (beaten 4,40 lengths into 8th by SA Oaks winner None Other last year). She wasn’t beaten too far last year and she might have gone over the top. There’s nothing that jumps out at us at the moment but we will look at all the options.”
Lafferty was in the news recently when the Hollywood Syndicate had their 500th winner. He in fact trained their first winner, Splendid Night (Lambent Light), who won on the 13th March 2002 at Greyville under Sean Cormack. He recalled his good friend the late Mathew Lipps led the winner in on behalf of Hollywood.
Paul does not train for Hollywood at present. He trained five winners for them in all and hopes in time to get the opportunity to train for this powerful racing syndicate again.
