Al Muthana on his way to victory on the outside rail (Wayne Marks).

Maingard Team Worked Around The Clock For LKP Win

Ricky Maingard said Saturday’s L’Ormarin’s King’s Plate winner Al Muthana had come out of the race very nicely.

He added, “We will just need to make a couple of adjustments, nothing serious, to ensure he can run well enough in the WSB Met. We will obviously give him a deserved couple of day’s rest.”

He continued, “I am pragmatic, I have been in racing for a long time so have both feet on the ground, and I am fully aware Jet Dark and Kommetdieding will be completely different propositions over 2000m, they are better than him over that trip … Al Muthana’s father Deep Field was a sprinter. However, Al Muthana has proved in Durban and on Saturday that he is as good as them over a mile and if there is one Grade 1 middle distance race in the country that can be won by a top class miler it is the Met, so we have to take our chances.”

Maingard also pointed out that Al Muthana’s below par runs in the Hollywoodbets Durban July and HKJC World Pool Champions Cup had followed a long, hard season.

He revealed how the private purchase of Al Muthana had happened.

He said, “Some of my owners in Mauritius had become disenchanted with the way racing was going over there and didn’t want to buy any new horses. They asked me to find a nice horse-in-training in SA who could run in feature races. I asked Grant Knowles, who is a good friend of mine, to look for one. He suggested a couple who I looked at and didn’t think would be good enough. He then said we could buy Al Muthana. I looked at him and saw he definitely had the potential.”

A private sale with Al Muthana’s owners and breeders, Shadwell, was subsequently concluded.

However, Al Muthana then arrived with a couple of issues.

The Maingard team put in a massive amount of effort to get him sound enough for his comeback run over a sprint and then a massive amount of effort to get him right for the King’s Plate, which ended up being a race against time.

Initially a veterinarian was brought over from Mauritius to look at his issues. In association with Ricky’s assistant trainer Kitt Kensley, “who is an exceptionally good farrier”, special work was done on his feet to prevent the speedy cuts which had been effecting him. The vet also recommended a special electronic blanket, which was imported from overseas at great expense to aid in the healing process.

He said no stone had been left unturned in the unbelievable effort that had ensued with “every member of the team playing their part.”

He himself said he had come over to Cape Town from Mauritius earlier than anticipated because he realised he would have to be there every morning, including Sundays, Christmas Day and New Years Day, in order to monitor Al Muthana’s well-being in what was going to be a race against time. The goal of the effort was to have him at a level where he would be able to run to his full potential in the King’s Plate.

He said, “We had to see how far we could go to get him to the fittest possible level without hurting him any further. We succeeded in our goal in the end, so this was a very good achievement by everybody who played their part.”

Previous trainer Mike de Kock and his team would have no doubt had to go through the same meticulous attention to detail in his preparation for the Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge back in June, where he beat Linebacker by 0,40 lengths with Jet Dark beaten 0,60 lengths into third.

On Saturday the presenters Grant Knowles and MJ Byleveld were wowed by how well Al Muthana looked in the preliminaries.

Ricky said, “I would be lying if I say I expected him to win, but I thought he looked pretty well and I thought he would run a good race. I don’t understand how the bookmakers had him at 80/1. If I had been thinking like them I would not have bothered asking the owners to fly out from Mauritius.”

The form was there for all to see as Al Muthana had beaten Jet Dark the last time he had run over a mile and, furthermore, he looked exceptional in the preliminaries.

Ricky said, “Some have said Charles Dickens did not run to his best, but he still beat the two best horses in the country, he ran a great race but just found somebody to beat him on the day … that’s horseracing.”

He praised the fine ride of Bernard Fayd’Herbe, who landed his sixth win in the prestigious weight for age race.

Fayd’Herbe’s tactics and the execution thereof showed why he has for a long time been regarded as one of the best big race riders in the country, although he did pick up a R40,000 fine for overuse of the whip.

Ricky part-owns Al Muthana together with Messrs D K Bundhoo, P G Joubert, K Kathapermal, M H Maingard & T R McCrow & Mrs M M M Bundhoo.

The owners were clearly ecstatic after the win and full of praise for the training team.

It was one of the finest training feats seen in SA for some time and Maingard proved why he has been regarded for decades as one of the best trainers in the Southern Hemisphere.

His Cape Town yard consists of only four older horses, six babies and two recent pucrhases, a total of 12 in all, and he wishes to expand to about 25 to 30 horses.

There should be a demand for his skills after landing the third King’s Plate/Queen’s Plate of his career.

He won this big race twice with the mighty Wolf Power in 1983 and 1984.

Wolf Power went on to finish second in the 1983 Met before winning the 1984 Met, despite essentially being a miler.

However, Ricky added, “But he was an exceptional, world class horse. He was a great miler and was possibly even better at 1400m because he had tremendous speed and acceleration and could go flat out the whole way over 1400m.”

Waterberry Lane (Candiese Lenferna Photography)

Waterberry Lane Among Potential Victims Of Mauritius Import Ban

The former Dean Kannemeyer-trained and late Mike Rattray-owned Waterberry Lane was scratched from the L’Ormarins King’s Plate after being sold to none other than Ricky Maingard.

The horse did not take his place because the intention was to send him to Mauritius to replace the like of Undercover Agent, who is nearing retirement.

However, in the latest round of troubles to hit the island’s horseracing fraternity the Mauritius Turf Club Sports & Leisure (MTCSL) was informed by the Horse Racing Division (HRD) of the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) in a letter dated January 4 that its horse import license had been revoked.

The HRD are apparently looking into the legality of the MTCSL importing horses because their horse racing organiser’s license expired on December 31, 2022.

The Chief Stipe of the HRD, Deanthan Moodley, explained he had forwarded the file for legal advice and would communicate the results of the advice to the MTCSL upon receiving it.

The trainers and owners, who have paid for close to 30 horses to be imported from SA, are now in the dark about whether they will be transported over on the original date at the end of January.

Eighteen racehorses actually arrived in Mauritius on December 27 and they were definitely not imported by the MTCSL. So if it was necessary to be a horseracing organiser to import them, they must have been imported by the Peoples Turf PLC. However, it is believed they might not have been imported by the Peoples Turf PLC.

Furthermore, in April 2021, the Ministry of Agro-industry had authorized two other companies, which had until then needed to use the services and the endorsement of the MTC, to import horses through their own way. Neither was a race organiser and yet they were allowed to import horses from abroad.

So why this urgency to study the legal status of the MTCSL to find out whether or not it can import horses, since it is clear that there has not been the need to be a race organiser to do so since 2021?

The Le Mauricien said in an article on Saturday, referring to the expiry of the horseracing license without normal renewal and the revoking of the import license, “More than ever the economic strangulation but also the prevention of the MTCSL from existing and functioning continues inexorably…”

A dream come true for Owen and Lesley Heffer (either side of the horse) as they lead in a Grade 1 winner for the first time (Wayne Marks).

Crawford And Hollywood’s Milestone Moment

L’Ormarins King’s Plate day started with one less superstar than it ended because the Brett Crawford-trained Dynasty filly Make It Snappy has put herself in line to achieve superstar status alongside the like of Charles Dickens, Jet Dark, Kommetdieding and Captain’s Ransom.

She won the Grade 1 Cartier Paddock Stakes from start to finish under Luyolo Mxothwa, holding on by 0,30 lengths from last season’s Equus Horse Of The Year Captain’s Ransom, who was out to retain the trophy.

It gave Crawford a second Cape Fillies Guineas/Paddock Stakes double.

He did it with the Sabine Plattner-owned Bad Girl Runs in the 2004/2005 season.

It is not a unique feat as Terrance Millard did the double at least twice and so did David Payne.

The first ever winner of the Grade 1 Cape Fillies Guineas in 1969, the Millard-trained Claneum, also won the Grade 1 Paddock Stakes and following her Palmistry (1973), Artists Pride (1977), Petrava (1985), Olympic Duel (1990), Shepherd’s Moon (1994/95), Hoeberg (2000/2001) and Bad Girl Runs (2005/2006) had also done the double before Make It Snappy became the ninth horse to do it on Saturday.

She gave the Hollywood Syndicate their first ever Grade 1 win in the WSB Cape Fillies Guineas on December 3 and made it two on Saturday.

Owen and Lesley Heffer, owners of Hollywoodbets, were not able to be at the Cape Fillies Guineas as it was run on the same day as their son Tyson’s wedding. It was therefore a special moment on Saturday when they were present this time to lead Make It Snappy in.

Hollywood, who lease Make It Snappy from her breeders Ridgemont Highlands Stud, are clinging on to their lead in the National Owners Championship.

Their runners have earned R6,649,325 but Drakenstein, who have more Grade 1 firepower, are only R623,987 behind.

Make It Snappy might have taken the lead in the points standing part to the Equus Horse Of The Year award as the only twice Grade 1 winner of the season to date.

The most amazing aspect to her success is that she has only had five career outings and and she could still be anything.

She is scopey and progressive so nobody knows how much more she still has to come.

Charles Dickens has been talked of in the same breath as the like of Horse Chestnut and Sea Cottage lately and it would be a harsh critic who said he lost any glitter on Saturday as he would have had to face the brunt of the South Easter coming down the inside for his run and was beaten narrowly.

But could Make It Snappy be such a horse too?

It is not unusual for nee superstars to emerge in the second half of the season.

An overseas example springs to mind.

There has seldom been a more hyped horse than Celtic Swing, who in the British winter of 1994 was headlines virtually everyday as the horse who was going to be the next Nijinsky.

Alas, his star faded when beaten a neck in the 2000 Guineas. He went on to win the French Derby before being well beaten in the Irish Derby and retired.

However, by the end of the season history had Lamtarra, whose four run unbeaten career included wins in a Listed event over seven furlongs, and he then won the Derby, the King George and the Arc.

Make It Snappy was supplemented for the Met just before Christmas and will be out to become the first horse in history to do the Cape Fillies Guineas/Paddock Stakes/Met treble.

She did not have an easy time of it getting to the front on Saturday and yet still found extra late to repel the Horse Of The Year. She beat three other Grade 1 winners too, Silver Darling, Sparkling Water and Rain In Holland.

This makes her a particularly exciting prospect.

How good is this rangy bay?

We will all find out on January 28.

Isivunguvungu is touched off by Mr Cobbs in the Franschhoek Motor Museum Winchester Sprint Cup over 1000m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday (Wayne Marks).

Mr Cobbs, Isivunguvungu, Princess Calla, Rascallion, Crome Yellow, Were Supporting Cast

Hollywood could have another Grade 1 candidate on their hands in the Peter Muscutt-trained What A Winter sprinter Isivunguvungu.

He showed huge promise last season as an out and out 1000m horse and on Saturday was snared late by the Candice Bass-Robinson-trained Mr Cobbs in the Franschhoek Motor Museum Winchester Sprint Cup over 1000m to give What A Winter a one-two.

Mr Cobbs is no slouch and was in fact a narrow runner up to Bohica in last year’s Grade 1 Pongracz Cape Flying Championship over 1000m.

Isivunguvungu was not only having his first run for over five months but also had to give Mr Cobbs 4kg.

His rider on Saturday Christophe Soumillon was making his comeback from a two month suspension, so all in all it augurs well for four-year-old Isivunguvungu’s forthcoming bid in the Cape Flying.

The powerful bay gelding was well named by Springbok rugby player Odwa Ndungane as the name means storm or thunder and lightning in isiXhosa.

Later, star Flower Alley mare Princess Calla made it two wins in two runs for Sean Tarry, ridden both times by Gavin Lerena. The trips of those wins, 1000m and 1200m, showed she is true class i.e. a horse who is superior or at her best at a mile and more but who can beat sprinters at their own game.

It will be interesting to see where Tarry goes with her next, because she would have to face Captain’s Ransom if going for the Grade 1 Majorca, so a tilt at the Cape Flying might be a possibility considering the sprinting division is not strong at present.

The Vaughan Marshall-trained Rascallion gained deserved bold black type when winning the Grade 2 Anthonij Rupert Wyne Premier Trophy over 1800m under Corne Orffer.

Rascallion’s career has unfortunately coincided with stalwarts like his stablemate Linebacker as well as Jet Dark and Kommetdieding and he had gained many Graded places before this victory.

Marshall pulled off a fine training feat as this was his third run after a layoff of eleven months.

Rascallion touched off the gallant seven-year-old Nexus on Saturday, a horse who grows an extra leg when ridden by Piere Strydom.

Rascallion gave a boost to Vercingetorix who had started lagging behind the former champion sire Gimmethegreenlight in the race for this season’s championship.

Gimmethegreenlight nevertheless holds a R1,219,012 lead over Vercingetorix. What A Winter is breathing down the latter’s neck in third place.

Crome Yellow later gave the Andre Nel/Sabine Plattner operation a boost in what has been a below par season by their standards. The eight-year-old Trippi gelding bounced back to his best with a fine win in the Grade 3 Merchants On Long Chairman’s Cup over 2500m, carrying 58kg at odds of 33/1 under Grant van Niekerk.

The Marshall-trained Senso Unico has been promising for a long time to relish staying trips and he finished second carrying 56kg at odds of 50/1. This Twice Over gelding might become a force to be reckoned with in the staying division as a rangy type who probably needed time to mature into his big frame.

CPYS Lot 38, a Gimmethegreenlight filly from Nadeson Park Stud.

Nadeson has two superb ‘Gimme’ fillies at CPYS

Nadeson Park Stud will be represented by three fillies and three colts at the Tattersalls Cape Premier Yearling Sale at CTICC this week. The stud’s owner Hassen Adams said: “They are all well-balanced horses with good bone and quarters.”

Adams said that, in his view, Nadeson’s two fillies by Gimmethegreenlight were the best of his six and he commented:

“Lot 38 – a bay filly out of Grecian Dancer by Antonius Pius. The mare comes from the highly successful family of Isadora Duncan. I bought her for her blood, to breed with and never raced her. Her first foal won first time out, the next two are unraced and this is her fourth. This filly is the splitting image of her father, with four white socks. She has a lot of potential, some growing to do being a mid-October foal but has a lot going for her (see pciture above the headline to the article).

“Lot 92 is the other ‘Gimme’, and she is a daughter of Skye Lane, by Pathfork. Skye Lane was good filly, ran 4th to One World in the rich CTS1600 but was injured in training and could not reach her full potential. I bought Skye Lane because she is herself a daughter of the G3 winner Queen’s Command (Commands). This is a super female line, the filly is bred along the same lines as Got The Greenlight. She is perhaps my best yearling, strong, robust and well put together (see picture below).

“Lot 16 is a filly by Master of My Fate out of District Six, by Mujadil. I raced the mare, she has a purple pedigree and won her first race by 14 lengths. She comes from the great Mystic Spring family and her half-sister by Gimmethgreenlight was sold to Lammerskraal for R3,5-million after I raced her. She is a dark bay, I can’t fault her conformation (see picture below).

“Lot 22 is a colt by What A Winter out of the Galileo mare Emerald Gal. What I like is when Galileo throws back to being chestnut, as this colt does. They have done very well in the UK and I have a feeling this one is going to be something special. His dam Emerald Gal is a mare I bought in Australia to get the family into breeding. The family has proven to be influential in the UK with Emerald Gal’s full-sister Ballet Shoes being a Listed winner. Huge potential (see pciture below).

“Lot 70 is a What A Winter colt out of Omega Force (Gimmethegreenlight) from the potent Aquila Rapax, black-type family. This lovely colt comes from the wonderful family of Red Ray, Brutal Force, Rudra and many others (see picture below).

“Lot 86 is a Potala Palace colt out of Scorching, by Dominion Royale. He is a neat colt, a steal for this sale, I think. He is a punchy type, will probably be a bargain buy that will come early.”

CPYS Lot 14, a Visionaire colt from Owloon Horses.

Owloon’s Alex Is Proud Of His Draft

Alex de Wet manages Owloon Horses of the Paarl district on behalf of German investor Christian Elleke and they are bringing three lots to the Cape Premier Yearling Sale at CTICC powered by Tattersalls this week.

Alex, who grew up around horses, trained at the renowned Lane’s End Farm in Central Kentucky and returned to South Africa when the opportunity presented itself. He is proud of Owloon’s draft and invites buyers to view them.

Lot 14 – Deputy Chief: a colt by Visionaire out of Deputy Ryder by Go Deputy. Alex said: “He is a big, strong horse and looks like an early type. His dam won five times, including two Listed races. He has quality about him.” (see picture above the headline to this article).

Lot 33 – Grand Force, a filly by Global View. She is a first foal produced by Gail Force (Soft Falling Rain), a winning half-sister to Russet Air from the prolific Icy Air family. “Grand Force is an elegant, athletic filly who walks well.” (see picture below)

Lot 72 has not yet been named. He is an eye-catching grey colt by Global View from the promising Orators Daughter, by Oratorio. “He is a smart sort, athletic and a good walker,” said Alex about this half-brother to Sea Air and Preemptive Strike (see picture below).

Pinnacle, ridden by S’Manga Khumalo, made it a double for Gavin Smith today to add to the four-timer he scored last Friday (Pauline Herman).

Greeff Treble Brings 50 Up, Fourie and Smith Doubles

Alan Greeff scored a treble on the Fairview poly today, two of them ridden by Richard Fourie.

Gavin Smith scored a double.

Fourie is now on 93 wins for the season, achieved at a strike rate of 19.87%, and he is 34 behind leader Keagan de Melo.

Greeff has reached the 50 winner mark for the season and has done it at a strike rate of 14.09%.

Smith is on 62 winners at 10.46%.

The horse pictured was the original “Big Red”. (horseracingsense.com)

Today’s Question

Which three famous horses were called “Big Red”.

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.

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Secretariat was the second great American horse to be known as “Big Red”.

ANSWER TO TODAY’S QUESTION:

americasbestracing.net

In 1920, they hadn’t yet started calling the Triple Crown the Triple Crown. Back then, the Kentucky Derby wasn’t thought to be much of a race, and it was just a few days before the Preakness. That’s the race that the owners of the horse folks called “Big Red,” a red chestnut that stood 16 hands, one and five-eighths inches, targeted for their horse to make his first start as a 3-year-old.

“Big Red” won that race, and went on to win all 11 of his starts that year. With a combined record of 20 wins and one second-place finish, he was retired at the end of that year. For more than 50 years the horse, whose actual name was Man o’ War, was considered the greatest racehorse of all time. None would dare compare their horse with that big, red chestnut. None would dare call their horse by Man o’ War’s nickname. There could be only one “Big Red.”

In a poem written in 1937 by the editor-in-chief of The Blood-Horse, Joe Estes, some 17 years after Man o’ War was retired, Estes wondered if ever another horse could match Man o’ War’s talents.

The poem was titled “Big Red” and it finished:

WE WATCH THE HEROES PARADING,

WE WAIT, AND OUR EYES ARE DIM,

BUT WE NEVER DISCOVER ANOTHER

LIKE HIM.

A FOAL IS BORN AT MIDNIGHT

AND IN THE FROSTY MORN

THE HORSEMAN EYES HIM FONDLY

AND A SECRET HOPE IS BORN.

BUT BREATHE IT NOT, NOR WHISPER,

FOR FEAR OF A NEIGHBOR’S SCORN:

HE’S A CHESTNUT COLT, AND HE’S GOT A STAR-

HE MAY BE ANOTHER MAN O’ WAR.

NAY, SAY IT ALOUD—BE SHAMELESS.

DREAM AND HOPE AND YEARN,

FOR THERE’S NEVER A MAN AMONG YOU

BUT WAITS FOR HIS RETURN.

And so it remained for more than 50 years after Man o’ War’s final race. The world waited for his return. In 1970, on a farm in Virginia, the wait finally ended. A bigger, redder chestnut was foaled. The first five names submitted for the horse were rejected by The Jockey Club, before they finally settled on Secretariat. It mattered not to Penny Chenery, the horse’s owner. She always just called him “Big Red.”

Secretariat followed in Man o’ War’s large footsteps, racing at many of the same tracks and races, including the New York circuit and winning the only race that Man o’ War ever lost – the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. It may have seemed like blasphemy to refer to Secretariat as “Big Red,” to talk about him in the same manner as the legendary Man o’ War. But by the end of his 3-year-old season, which saw him capture the first Triple Crown in 25 years, the ninth in history, folks knew that Secretariat was something special, a once in a lifetime racehorse who broke records in all three legs of the Triple Crown.

He went on after winning the 1973 Triple Crown to race six more times, winning four of those starts. For his penultimate race, Secretariat’s connections chose to enter him in his first-ever start on grass. The race was named the Man o’ War Stakes, in honor of the original “Big Red.” After Secretariat won it by five lengths, turf writers accepted that Secretariat was indeed worthy of the “Big Red” moniker. In fact, they would do him one better. The day after the Man o’ War Stakes they took to calling their champion “Super Red.” No longer did they whisper. No longer did they fear their neighbor’s scorn.

Meanwhile, In Australia, the 1926-born Phar Lap was alternately known affectionately as “The Wonder Horse”, “The Red Terror” and “Big Red”.

Turf Talk Newsletter – 9 January 2023