Evening Primrose To Join Money Heist In Jo’burg
Gareth van Zyl and his Summerveld colleagues had a halcyon day at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday as they won 40% of the ten races on offer between them.
Van Zyl won two races, including the feature on the day, the Listed Jamaica Handicap over 2000m, while Peter Muscutt and Dennis Drier each won one race.
The four-year-old Flower Alley filly Evening Primrose was given a fine ride by Athandiwe Mgudlwa, especially considering his lack of experience of the Kenilworth track, to win the Jamaica Handicap and she will now join stablemate Money Heist in Johannesburg.
Money Heist (Gimmethegreenlight) ran a cracking sixth in an ultra strong renewal of the Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas, where he came from last and produced impressive finishing sectionals.
He is already in Johannesburg and the Grade 2 WSB Gauteng Guineas on February 4 will be his initial target.
Evening Primrose is going to Johannesburg because the Highveld program is viewed as the most suitable one for a four-year-old filly of her merit rating (92).
As a big, rangy type she is also suited to the long straights on the Highveld.
The promising two-year-old filly Miss Hannigan is also heading for Jo’burg and will be aimed at the Grade 2 SA Fillies Nursery.
Another Van Zyl horse going to Jo’burg is Captainofthegreen, who has shown promise in four runs in KZN.
There will be a couple of others on the float to Johannesburg too.
Gareth’s chief horse still remaining in Cape Town is Wiccan Warrior, who runs over 1400m on Saturday. That will be a first step in trying to qualify him for the Grade 1 Cape Derby.
The double Gareth had on Saturday took his tally of wins in Cape Town this season to seven and it has been achieved at a fine strike rate of 24.14%.
He has collected a number of substantial cheques for those wins and has spoken of his gratitude for those incentives which make all the hard work worthwhile.
One of the fillips for the yard has been the taking on of the breeder and horseman of many years experience, Spencer Cook, as a stable employee.
Gareth said Spencer was not only a fine horseman, and a famously passionate one too, but also had a fine eye.
“He has a very good eye for horses’ well being on the training tracks,” he said.
Furthermore, Spencer not only helped Gareth select at CPYS 2023, but also brought him a new client who purchased two horses.
Gareth landed three yearlings in all at CPYS 2023, and a fourth one is being sent to him.
He was chuffed to land three good value yearlings at a sale that overall favoured sellers.
He landed lot 102, a Varsfontein Stud-bred Gimmethegreenlight filly out of an Oratorio winner who is a half-sister to Grade 2 winner Silvano’s Jet, for R200,000;
Lot 111, a Master Of My Fate filly out of a one-time winning Dynasty mare, vendored by Black Swan Stud as agent, for R150,000;
And Lot 118, an Elusive Fort colt out of a three time-winning Centenary mare, also sold by Black Swan as agent for R200,000.
Cape Raider Stats Tell A Story
According to the sahorseracing.co.za stats there were 38 runs by raiders in Cape Town last season and only three wins, Mike Azzie winning the Grade 1 Compuform Sprint with Bohica, Mike de Kock winning the Grade 2 New Turf Carriers Western Cape Stayers with Sparkling Water and Alan Greeff winning the Listed City Of Cape Town Summer Juvenile Stakes with Cliff Top.
This season raiders have had 164 runs and 18 wins and there is still more than a month of the season to go.
The 18 wins include three stakes race victories, Sean Tarry winning both the Grade 2 wsb.co.za Southern Cross Stakes and the Grade 2 Cartier Sceptre Stakes with Princess Calla and Gareth van Zyl winning the Listed Jamaica Handicap with Evening Primrose on Saturday.
Mike Azzie finished last season as leading raiding trainer and was in 16th place on the Western Cape log in stakes earned. He had one win from 3 runs, a strike rate of 33,33%, and stakes of R633,750.
Gareth van Zyl is leading raiding trainer so far this season.
He is in 12th position on the Cape log with seven wins in 29 runs at a strike rate of 24.14% and stakes of R653,587.
Sean Tarry is in 14th position with three wins from 10 runs, a strike rate of 30%, and stakes of R533,500.
Peter Muscutt is in 15th place with four wins from 28 runs, a strike rate of 14.29%, and stakes of R530,462.
Dennis Drier has had two wins in Cape Town this season, Gavin van Zyl has had one win and Alyson Wright has had one win.
Azzie will have personally earned, calculating on the norm of 10% of the stakes, R63,375 for his efforts in Cape Town last season.
This season Gareth van Zyl will have earned R65,358 plus numerous of the incentive bonuses given to raiding trainers and owners for each win. In his case those bonuses will have earned him an extra amount of around R200,000! Roundabout half of his wins have been on “festival” days, which brings a cheque of R50,000 each, and the other wins would have brought cheques of R10,000 each.
Tarry and Gareth van Zyl are one-two in strike rate on the Cape log for trainers with ten or more runs this season.
This is not altogether surprising considering the raiding trainers bring a select squad with them.
However, it is of particular interest that KZN trainers are responsible for 15 of the 18 raider wins this season, considering KZN is these days considered a distant third behind Cape Town and Johannesburg as a racing powerhouse.
The incentives have brought out the best in the KZN trainers and they will be riding the crest of a wave.
This might have a knock on effect at the sales.
Dennis Drier’s success around the country at the beginning of last decade and beyond saw him winning increasing owner support and building a powerful yard.
The same could have been said for Duncan Howells.
There could possibly be a repeat of this process for Van Zyl et al, although a look at ten seasons ago shows that the leading KZN yards of today have generally less runners than they had back then.
In the 2013/2014 season leading KZN trainers Dennis Drier, Kumaran Naidoo, Duncan Howells, Gavin van Zyl and Charles Laird had had 251, 402, 290, 322 and 130 runs respectively by this time of the season compared to Garth Puller, Kumaran Naidoo, Peter Muscutt, Gareth van Zyl and Wendy Whitehead having 332, 353, 187, 175 and 170 respectively so far this season.
That is 1395 runners, and an average of 279, compared to 1217 and an average of 243.
The reasons for this downturn will have to be looked into, but it might be harder these days for a KZN yard to become a national force.
Nevertheless, they can still build their way out of a period which could be called the doldrums.
Under Your Spell Puts Her Hand Up For Empress Club Stakes
Grade 1 winner Under Your Spell was beaten just 0,75 lengths by the star filly Princess Calla in last year’s Grade 1 HSH Princess Charlene Empress Club Stakes over 1600m and should be a lively candidate again this year after showing herself to be in fine fettle at Turffontein Standside today (Monday).
The Sean Tarry-trained four-year-old Capetown Noir filly was up against the ever-improving Mike de Kock-trained four-year-old What A Winter filly Humdinger and the pair treated spectators to a thrilling finish.
Humdinger had the run of the race as Keagan de Melo was able to get her into her favourite front-running role from draw three without using up much energy, while Under Your Spell, from draw five, was forced to sit on her flank without cover.
Humdinger dictated and was kept together for sometime in the long straight still travelling comfortably, but when they drove for the line it was Under Your Spell who found the necessary extra to get up by a head, despite that earlier lack of cover and having to give Humdinger 4kg.
The Grade 3 Acacia Stakes over 1600m on February 26, a merit rated band race in which 114 merit-rated Under Your Spell would have to carry 60kg and 103 merit rated Humdinger would have to carry 56, is one option for both fillies on their road to the Empress Club Club Stakes on April 15.
They faced each other on those same weights today. Under Your Spell is unlikely to cop a raise for today’s win as she was well in at the weights.
Another option could be the Grade 2 Hawaii Stakes against the boys on March 4, a weight for age plus penalties event.
Both horses would have to carry a 1kg Grade 2 penalty in the Hawaii as respective winners of Grade 2 events in the previous 13 months.
The Hawaii and the Empress Club would obviously be hard asks for Humdinger, who would officially be 5,5kg under sufferance with Under Your Spell in both races.
Under Your Spell will escape having to carry a Grade 1 penalty in the Hawaii, because her Grade 1 win in the Allan Robertson happened outside of that previous 13 month cut off period.
Rebel King Is An Unusual Sire Name On Tomorrow’s Racecard
Rebel King’s progeny are unusual entries in SA racing these days, but he was still going as a stallion recently and he has a two-year-old filly appearing in the first race at the Vaal Classic track tomorrow (Tuesday), the Robyn Klaassen-trained Jailhouse Rebel.
This filly is out of the Mike de Kock-trained Australian-bred Shamus Award mare Jailhouse Jazz, who looked to have potential when scoring second time out as a juvenile by 2,25 lengths over 1450m, but she failed to build on that.
The Rebel King filly running in Tueday’s first race was bred by Schalkie van der Walt.
Rebel King stood at Gelykfontein after leaving Klawervlei Stud.
Gelykfontien is a Karoo farm that has been in the Van der Walt family since 1884, where they originally farmed cattle and sheep and trained cart horses.
In 1935 JC “Boer” van der Walt began breeding thoroughbred racehorses.
In the late 1960s his twin sons Schalk and Jannie joined the farming activities and by this stage the farm bred thoroughbreds, had a small Dairy, and farmed with Boer Goats, sheep and South Devon Cattle.
Schalk continued on the farm after his father’s passing in1977 and currently the 6th generation family farms with Nguni Cattle, Rubicon Merino Sheep, indigenous Veld Goats and Thoroughbred Race Horses.
Ormond Ferraris lamented in his book Thoroughly, “I was always a Karoo man for horses, a place where breeders like the Birch Brothers were renowned for raising the young horses tough in a rough environment. Their horses, and most other Karoo-breds, stood up to training. But the Karoo has long fallen out of fashion, most of their wonderful bloodlines have run their course, and fewer and fewer come to the sales these days.”
Evidence of how unfashionable Rebel King, a former Klawervlei Stud stallion, became is that his only two runners so far this season have an age difference of six years – the gallant Erico Verdonese-trained Nordic Rebel who won a race as a nine-year-old this season off a merit rating of 89, and the three-year-old JS Roux-trained Northern King, who has earned only one place from nine runs.
It is not known whether Rebel King is still at Gelykfontein, but this last season they began standing the underrated sire Visionaire.
Rebel King produced five individual stakes winners in all.
Visionaire has produced nine individual stakes winners, including two individual Grade 1 winners.
Hopefully, he can boost the fortunes of a once famous breeding region.
Hoop Jr. won the first Kentucky Derby to ever be postponed (americanclassicpedigrees.com)
Today’s Question
The Kentucky Derby has been run uninterrupted since 1875 but there have only been two occasions when it was not run on the first Saturday of May. Which two occasions?
See answer at the bottom of the newsletter
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Authentic, ridden by John Valazquez, gives Bob Baffert a record-equalling sixth Kentucky Derby victory in the postponed 2020 renewal run with no crowds present. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/AP
That was due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
