Duke Of Sussex’s strong late run takes him past his stable companion Dyce (JC Photos).
Gold Circle
The orange and black colours of Dave Shawe will be seen at the entrance to the Vaal racecourse for the next year, replacing the blue and yellow colours of Vicky Veeramootoo.
The colours of the Grand Heritage’s winning owner are displayed there, so Shawe is particularly deserving of the accolade because his Lucky Houdalakis-trained horses Duke Of Sussex and Dyce, ridden by JP van der Merwe and Muzi Yeni respectively, ran one-two in Saturday’s 27-runner field over 1475m.
It was another fine training feat by the Houdalakis team who are based at the Vaal and have thus always wanted to win this race.
Duke Of Sussex, a progressive Drakenstein Stud-bred gelding by Duke Of Marmalade, was targeted at this race.
Dyce, on the other had, had top class juvenile form but recently made a comeback from an injury-enforced layoff of about a year-and-a-half. Houdalakis gave him plenty of time to recover and when he looked himself while winning his second run back over 1200m he decided to supplement him for the Grand Heritage.
Duke Of Sussex was not stopped by a maximum eight point raise for his last win on November 3 over 1600m on the Vaal Classic track.
He won that race by five lengths with the next two placed runners beaten 7,50 and 9 lengths respectively meaing some would have viewed his merit rating on Saturday as being capped.
So, it proved.
He jumped from the widest draw of all in the 27 horse field.
He got a good break and Van der Merwe eased him into a rhythmical stride about 3,50 lengths off the pace, which was being set by the KZN raider Sea Master towards the outside.
Dyce was covered up two lengths in front of Duke Of Sussex, but was racing hard against the steel.
Some had questioned whether the William Longsword four-year-old colt would see out the trip, being one who possessed plenty of speed.
Yeni switched Dyce out at the 700m mark and he used his beautiful, big action to glide into the lead.
Gallic Tribe had meanwhile hit the front down the inside.
However, Dyce was showing no sign of stopping and took over the lead just before the 200m mark still striding out nicely.
He looked all over the winner until Duke Of Sussex appeared on the scene with a wet sail.
Duke Of Sussex overtook Dyce close to home, but still had a ton in hand and won by half-a-length easing up.
Whafeef stayed on well to pip the topweight Outofthedarkness by a quarter of a length for third.
Chyavana proved he stays further than sprints by plugging on for fifth, while a tiring Gallic Tribe just held on to the sixth place ahead of the one-eyed Indlamu.
Dyce started Tote favourite but with bookmakers was joint 15/2 favourite with Irish Tractor.
The latter had cover alongside Dyce in the early stages, but when switched inward he found nothing and finished 16th, beaten 8 lengths, just behind Prophet. The latter had to run off a 110 merit rating, but has nevertheless become a disappointment considering the promise he showed as a two-year-old.
Houdalakis admitted he did not believe Duke Of Sussex to be as good as Dyce and also admitted he had put his money on Dyce, despite him having to give his stablemate 3.5kg carrying 57,5kg.
Nevertheless, Dyce off a 101 merit rating looks well ahead of the handicapper and Lucky’s one option will be to protect his mark until the Grade 1 Golden Horse Sprint, because off bottom weight he will be hard to beat there.
The day did not start off too well for the Dave Shawe family.
His mother is named Lorna Lilly and her namesake ran for Dave in the first race but this Houdalakis-trained Flower Alley filly finished unplaced.
The Houdalakis team did win the second race with the first-timer filly by Master Of My Fate called Kinky Boots, who is fittingly owned by Greg Bortz and Gina Goldsmith. Greg was voted on to the Gold Circle board on Thursday.
The filly was backed in from 25/1 to 8/1 and just got up under Marco van Rensburg.
Later in a strongly contested Pinnacle Stakes event over 1000m the classy speedster Big
Burn just got up under 4kg claimer Siyanda Sosibo to beat the Golden Horse Sprint winner Alesian Chief by a long-head with Bartholdi producing a flying finish for third.
It was a fine reappearance run by Alesian Chief, who had to carry 62kg and official faced the filly on 2,5kg worse terms than he would have faced her in a handicap.
The Non-Black Type WSB Sophomore 1000 was won by the Roy Magner-trained Twice Over colt Taikonaut under Muzi Yeni.
Karangetang bounced back to form in this race after a few disappointing runs and was beaten only a quarter of a length while giving the winner 2kg.
The Non-Black Type WSB Heritage Consolation was won by the Gavin van Zyl-trained four-year-old Master Of My Fate gelding Fateful Day to give JP van der Merwe a Grand Heritage double. He beat Elusive Swann and Clarkson. It was a difficult race to assess and the result proved it because Fateful Day was officially 3,5kg under sufferance, while the second and third-placed horses were both 6kg under sufferance.
