Zac Lloyd cruises in on Lady Shenandoah to land his second career Gr 1 (Picture: Steve Hart).
Jockeys Zac Lloyd and Chad Schofield and owner Larry Nestadt were other South African connected industrymen to enjoy memorable success in an overseas jurisdiction on Saturday.
Lloyd and Schofield are Australians but are the respective sons of former Durban-based jockey icon Jeff Lloyd and former Durban-based top jockey Glynn Schofield and they both enjoyed multiple Group success on Saturday at Randwick, including a Gr 1 win apiece, while the Nestadt part-owned Just Fine booked his place in the Melbourne Cup with a Gr 3 win at Flemington.
Zac Lloyd is only 21 years old and only made his race-riding debut in November 2020, but he is already being viewed as a champion in the making. An illustration of the early success he has had is that in the last 14 years he is the only person other than legendary trainer Chris Waller to have won the Bart Cummings Medal. The Bart Cummings Medal point score – honouring the legendary trainer who passed away nine years ago – is comprised of votes from seven leading Sydney racing journalists and last year Zac Lloyd broke a sequence of 12 medals Waller had won, although Waller once again landed the medal this year.
On Saturday at Randwick Zac landed his second career Gr 1 when winning the Gr 1 Aus$750,000 Darley Flight Stakes over 1600m on the Chris Waller-trained Lady Shenandoah, who annihilated them by over three lengths.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT THE FLIGHT STAKES
In the next race Zac won a Group 2 over 1200m worth AUS$1 million on the Michael, Wayne and John Hawkes-trained Airman (I Am Invincible).
In the following race Zac failed by a head in the Gr 1 Metropolitan on the James Cummings-trained Zardozi (Kingman).
The race after the Metropolitan was the Gr 1 AUS$1,507,500 Tab Epsom over 1600m and was won by the Joseph Pride-trained Ceowulf (Tavistock) ridden by Chad Schofield.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT SCHOFIELD’S GR 1 WIN ON CEOWULF
Schofield also won a Gr 3 race at Randwick.
The third-placed horse in the Tab Epsom from draw 17 was Royal Patronage, who is part-owned by Larry Nestadt, and it did his chances of getting into the Melbourne Cup no harm.
On the same day the Nestadt part-owned Just Fine, a Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Irish-bred Sea The Stars gelding, had won the Gr 3 The Lexus Bart Cummings over 2520m at Flemington under Jordan Childs and had thus booked his place in the Melbourne Cup.
