Big Burn is one of five Sean Tarry-trained runners in the Grade 2 Senor Santa Stakes over 1160m at Turffontein Standside tomorrow (JC Photos).
Tarry Train Builds Up A Head Of Steam As Season Progresses
Trainer has five runners in the grade 2 Senor Santa Stakes headed by Princess Calla and Big Burn
David Mollett (Business Day)
Sean Tarry is a guy who doesn’t like playing second fiddle. So his being R10m behind Justin Snaith in stake earnings this term is a subject best avoided with the former champion trainer.
(*Ed – the R10 million lead is based on total stakes earnings including restricted races, but Snaith’s official lead over Tarry is R4,781,812).
However, after a slow start to the season, the Tarry train is building up a head of steam. The stable won two big races last weekend — the Wilgerbosdrift Fillies with Bless My Stars and the Hawaii Stakes with Under Your Spell.
At Turffontein on Saturday, Tarry has a good chance of another feature win with five runners in the grade 2 Senor Santa Stakes headed by Princess Calla and Big Burn.
Richard Fourie gets the ride on Princess Calla for the first time — Gavin Lerena won twice on the mare in the Cape season and a high draw might have been a factor in the mare’s defeat in the Cape Flying Championship.
Lerena rides Prince Of Fire for Johan Janse van Vuuren and the gelding looks an unlikely winner.
Paul Peter did an outstanding job with Big Burn and the Elusive Fort filly is very much in the picture after her third place in the Tommy Hotspur Handicap. She is 2kg better off with the winner of that race, Rollwiththepunches.
While it is hats off to Roy Magner for landing a four-timer with Rollwiththepunches, it is the Randjesfontein trainer’s other runner, Taikonaut, who may emerge the main threat to the Tarry quintet.
Muzi Yeni — under suspension — will be miffed at having to watch this race on TV as he partnered the colt to wins in both the Sophomore Sprint and Lebelo Stakes. Marco van Rensburg gets the ride on the three-year-old.
It’s hard to know what to expect from the top-weight, Supreme Warrior, who finished lame on his last start. On his day, he is useful as he showed in last season’s KZN Guineas.
If there’s to be an upset, it could be provided by Corné Spies’ runner, Prophet. The gelding may have needed the outing when third behind stablemate, William Robertson, last month.
Some familiar names will contest the Aquanaut Handicap and here Lerena should go close on Fabian Habib’s four-year-old, Zeus. The gelding holds a number of his rivals on his recent third behind Shangani.
Marchingontogether is in the mix for the St John Gray stable with Arumugam in with a shout despite a disappointing last run.
Bookmakers’ eyes must have lit up when they saw Namaqua Blossom entered for the Sun Chariot Handicap — the filly has filled the runner-up berth in each of her past four outings.
Perhaps Keagan De Melo can work his magic on the daughter of Flower Alley, but both Quiet Rebellion and KwaZulu-Natal raider Electric Surge could make life difficult for the favourite. Not a race to risk the rent money on.
Tarry has three runners in the Derby Trial and the pick of the trio could be Billy Spellbound. The son of William Longsword hasn’t enjoyed much luck in his past two outings and can stay the trip which he is trying for the first time.
The early betting has Destiny Of Souls and Top Sail heading the market at 5-1 which is an indication that this might be the most competitive event on the 10-race programme.
SELECTIONS
1st Race: (11) Pontiac (1) Fish Eagle (12) Sagan (2) Insightful
2nd Race: (2) Quantifier (1) Bronze Sword (3) Positive Attitude (4) Wonderworld
3rd Race: (2) Mercantour (7) Umthombo Wolwazi (8) Wind Water (5) Raffles
4th Race: (5) Billy Spellbound (1) Destiny Of Souls (3) Top Sail (9) Battleground
5th Race: (2) Raratonga Rose (8) Red Maple (4) Ipso Facto (6) Light Of Day
6th Race: (5) Gimme A Shot (1) Aragosta (2) Outofthedarkness (9) Bey Suyay
7th Race: (2) Princess Calla (9) Taikonaut (6) Big Burn (10) Prophet
8th Race: (2) Zeus (3) Marchingontogether (6) Arumugam (7) Good Council
9th Race: (7) Quiet Rebellion (6) Namaqua Blossom (4) Electric Surge (3) Capetown Beauty
10th Race: (5) Tamarisk Tree (1) Supreme Dance (6) Invincible Warrior (3) Willow’s Wish
* David Mollett wishes to apologise for incorrect statistics he put in a recent article about Paddy Kruyer – the latter started training racehorses in September 1985 and has actually saddled over 1030 winners, including a host of features countrywide.
Van Halen (Picture: JC Photos)
The Life and Legacy of Van Halen: From CPYS to Group 1 Winner
Corne Spies (Spies Racing)
Van Halen was not just any racehorse. He was a champion, a top sprinter who made a name for himself on the tracks of South Africa. He was bought at the Cape Yearling Sale, and little did anyone know that he would go on to become one of our top performers. But his journey was not without its ups and downs, its moments of triumph and moments of heartbreak.
Van Halen’s story begins with his purchase at the Cape Yearling Sale. He was a striking young colt, with a pedigree that hinted at greatness. He was family to another Group 1 winning horse that was trained by Spies Racing, called Rock Opera. The Spies Racing team knew they had something special in Van Halen, and they set out to train him to be the best.
Van Halen’s two-year-old career began with a bang. He won his debut race in style, leaving his competitors in the dust. But that was just the beginning. Van Halen went on to win the Group 1 Golden Medallion sprint in a stunning race that left spectators breathless. It was a moment of triumph for Van Halen and the Spies Racing team, and they knew that they had a star in the making.
But Van Halen was not done yet. He went on to win the Group 3 Man O’ War Stakes, cementing his status as a top sprinter. His four-year-old season was even more impressive. He won the extremely prestigious Group 1 Mercury Sprint, a race that is known for its intense competition and high stakes. It was a moment of glory for Van Halen and the Spies Racing team, a moment that they will never forget.
But misfortune struck just as Van Halen was reaching the height of his career. We had decided to take him to the Saudi World Cup, where he would have competed against some of the best horses in the world. But sadly, injury cut his career short. It was a devastating blow for everyone who knew and loved Van Halen, and for the entire racing community. But even in the face of this tragedy, Van Halen’s legacy lived on.
After his retirement from racing, Van Halen retired to the countryside in France. He spends his days relaxing and enjoying the simple pleasures of life. But even in retirement, his name continues to inspire and motivate. He was a reminder of what can be achieved with hard work, determination, and a bit of luck. He was a symbol of hope for all those who dream of making it big in the world of racing.
Van Halen’s legacy lives on. He will always be remembered as a top sprinter, a champion, and a symbol of what can be achieved with hard work and determination. His name will be whispered in the halls of racing history for generations to come, and his story will continue to inspire and motivate all those who follow in his hoofprints.
Eclipse Award-Winning Article About The Defunct Hollywood Park Racecourse
Beneath The Super Bowl’s Turf: The Ghosts of Hollywood Park
By Tim Layden (wriiten in February 2022 it won the Eclipse Writers Award at the ceremony held earlier this year).
Just north of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, home of Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI, a roadway named Pincay Drive connects South Prairie Avenue on the west to Crenshaw Boulevard on the East. It is nearly a mile long and dead straight, unremarkable except for the history it holds in six white letters on a green background. Pincay Drive is ostensibly an homage to Hall of Fame thoroughbred jockey Laffit Pincay, Jr. “When they named it, the mayor of Inglewood sent a letter,’’ says Pincay, who retired in 2003 and is now 75. “I’m proud of that street.’’ As he should be: Only one rider in history has won more races than Pincay. The sign bearing his name recognizes a towering personal greatness. But also the passage of time and a dimming legacy (not his). It is part guidepost, part memorial.
SoFi – it’s called a “stadium,’’ but it is so breathtaking in scope that it begs for a fresh noun, much like the Astrodome did more than a half century ago – sits on the earth where once sat Hollywood Park, a racetrack (and at times, it seems, a sport) from another time. Before it was Hollywood Park, it was a bean field, and then when it opened in 1938, a marriage of old Hollywood itself and the erstwhile Sport of Kings. Its original backers included Bing Crosby and Walt Disney. It remained so for many years, a place to be seen and photographed. “My earliest days there,’’ says Pincay. “I met so many movie stars.’’ Triple Crown winners Citation, Seattle Slew and Affirmed raced at Hollywood Park. The first Breeders’ Cup championships took place at Hollywood, in 1984 (and returned twice thereafter). Gradually, the movie stars stopped coming, and eventually, so too the horses. A dispiriting racing tale played on an endless loop.
The final race at Hollywood Park finished in the gloaming, at 6:11 p.m. on Dec. 22, 2013. Demolition of the track began in 2014, and was virtually finished with the implosion of the main grandstand on May 31, 2015. The prodigal Los Angeles Rams and former San Diego Chargers moved into SoFi for the 2020 season. Racing in Southern California became largely concentrated at Santa Anita in Arcadia and Del Mar, just north of San Diego, with help from the resurrected Los Alamitos. Hollywood Park took its place as the most famous among dozens of race tracks shuttered in the last 25 years.
It is manifest truth that most of our bricks-and-mortar memories will pass into their own afterlives, compelled by various forms of progress. All that’s left of Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, where Bill Mazeroski hit the game-winning Game 7 home run in the 1960 World Series, is a little piece of wall on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. The Spectrum, where Christian Laettner beat Kentucky at the buzzer in 1992? First dwarfed by a new arena, then demolished. In 2012, on assignment for Sports Illustrated and writing about the then-record 63-yard field goal’s enduring power, I tried to find the exact spot from where Tom Dempsey of the New Orleans Saints had kicked his 63-yarder in 1970, the first from that distance. Tulane Stadium was long gone, and the best I could do was narrow the spot down to a nice lawn on a quad outside the college’s athletic complex. There was no marker commemorating the moment. We are often left with YouTube and our imagination.
It is symbolically resonant that in Inglewood, horse racing has been replaced by football, a baton pass across decades, from a time – just about when Hollywood Park opened — when racing, boxing and baseball were America’s games, to when professional football is the most reliably lucrative entertainment property in America. Rarely is the transformation so stark and so on-the-nose. Old sport, meet new sport. It is not a transformation you could have sold in 1939, but today it sells itself.
Hollywood Park evolved into the workaday track in Southern California. Santa Anita, 15 miles east, is framed by the San Gabriel Mountains, every bit as breathtaking as the Rose Bowl, every bit as glamorous. Del Mar had the ocean, and a deserved party reputation as the Saratoga of the West (or vice versa; geographic semantics with the same outcome). Hollywood, through a succession of ownership and design changes, was at its core, reliable. “There was never any consistent feel to Hollywood Park,’’ says Jay Hovdey, for many years a California-based columnist for the Daily Racing Form. “It was more about who and when, a long stretch of sunny post-school days – fast track, firm turf, and a guaranteed lineup of all-star performers on the track, even on a Thursday afternoon.’’
Two-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Doug O’Neill moved from Michigan to Santa Monica, California at age 10, and frequented all three California tracks. “Hollywood Park was just always right there, short drive, they had Friday night racing,’’ says O’Neill. “It was a really important part of the mix.’’
O’Neill’s first Grade I (the highest level) victory came with Sky Jack in the 2002 Hollywood Gold Cup, and he won it three more times with Lava Man, victories that elevated his place in the game, long before his first Derby win, with I’ll Have Another in 2012 (followed by Nyquist in 2016). He drove past Hollywood when the demolition was underway on the grandstand and thought to himself, okay, I guess there’s no turning back now. “It’s a big void for all of us,” says O’Neill. “We spent what, three, four months of our lives at Hollywood Park, every year?”
O’Neill has been back once, for a Rolling Stones concert last October. He found himself looking around, trying to reconcile the monolith in which he sat from the racetrack where he had worked and played. “It was disorienting,’’ says O’Neill. “It was a cool place to train horses, the access to the main track for training was really good. And here I was looking around, thinking, okay, where was our barn? Where was the training track? Big-time confusing.’’
There was no bigger modern horse at Hollywood than Zenyatta. In the autumn of 2010, she lived the last months of her thoroughbred racing career in trainer John Shirreffs’ Barn 55 south at Hollywood Park. Zenyatta was a superstar in a fading sport, a giant, late-running mare who won 19 consecutive races over four years and punched little holes in the wall that often keeps racing hidden from the larger world, except on Kentucky Derby day (and every once in a while, on the Belmont Stakes Saturday that follows). She was known, and in that way only true believers can comprehend, she was loved.
Her home was the furthest barn from the main racetrack, with its cruise ship-sized grandstand, though closest to the distant training track. Shirreffs got the spot because nobody else was interested; it was not only a long haul to the race paddock, but the barn was short on worker housing. That was fine with Shirreffs, who not only liked privacy, but many of his employees lived in Inglewood. “They also told me they would never move me again,’’ says Shirreffs. “So I said, `I’ll take it.’”
Barn 55 south was an urban oasis inside an urban oasis. There were palm trees whispering up against the shedrow and a grassy lawn the size of a hockey rink, shaded by a row of trees and surrounded by a walking path. Zenyatta was most at peace grazing back behind the barn, occasionally lifting her head to look at a car passing in the distance or at the birds overhead. There were many visitors, and one morning a woman who had won a “Breakfast With Zenyatta’’ contest left her purse on a chair to visit with Zenyatta on the grass, but the mare kept trying to drag her back to the purse because it was full of carrots.
Late in October of 2010, Zenyatta was narrowly beaten in her last race, the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. She came back briefly to Hollywood, where her racetrack family said goodbye, and then she left for good, relocated to a breeding farm back in Kentucky. The spot where she once grazed is now part of SoFi’s sprawling field of parking lots. A friend of Shirreffs who is attending the Super Bowl told Shirreffs he’s been assigned a spot very near where Barn 55 south once stood, and that he paid $450 for it.
For Shirreffs, 76, born in Kansas, raised on Long Island, a Marine who served in Vietnam, Hollywood Park was not just that urban oasis for his horses, but an island of calm for the adults who care for them. It started for Shirreffs when California racing would move from Santa Anita to Hollywood Park in the spring, just as days began lengthening. “It was a rebirth, in a sense,’’ he says. He remembers a walkway from the barn area to the main track, “It was dirt, with trees on both sides,’’ he says. “You could walk your horse to the track in a nice quiet manner. Very peaceful.’’
Three decades before Zenyatta, when Shirreffs was working for trainer Brian Mayberry and would see two-time Horse of the Year John Henry (1981, ’84) walking past en route to the track for a workout. “I would say `That’s John Henry?’” says Shirreffs. “He looked like a pony. One day I went over to the track and what a transformation. It was like he gained 100 pounds, and all the blood went to his muscles, and boy, he was something to see.’’
They all have memories. O’Neill with his Gold Cup wins. Pincay talks about early mornings, getting on a couple of horses and then hanging out with Hall of Fame trainers Ron McAnally and the late Bobby Frankel. And about riding Triple Crown winner Affirmed to victory in the 1979 Hollywood Gold Cup. “My favorite horse,’’ he says. This is what remains: Words, images, recollections.
“I was sad when they tore the place down,’’ says Shirreffs. “But the greater sadness is number one, that nobody in the industry wanted to preserve it, and number two, nobody wanted to do something to replace it.’’
It is the sport’s struggle, writ large. And football’s triumph, writ larger. A scant few of the thousands who arrive Sunday will scan the pristine grounds and remember what’s buried beneath their feet, and perhaps tell a friend. But Hollywood Park’s gilded past grows ever more distant:
The dying echo of a bugle, the fading rumble of hoofbeats.
Acres of asphalt, steel and artificial grass, laid over a fragile history.
Tim Layden is writer-at-large for NBC Sports. He was previously a senior writer at Sports Illustrated for 25 years.
Wendy Wooley’s Eclipse Award-Winning Photograph
Photographer Wendy Wooley won her first Eclipse Award earlier this year for the above photograph of Hot Rod Charlie and Tyler Gaffalione (right) fighting off Rich Strike and Sonny Leon to win the Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs.
Her entry was entitled “Elbow Room Please.”
Alistair Cohen Shock In Dubai
The top South African Commentator Alistair Cohen has learnt he has been replaced For the Dubai World Cup meeting by American commentator Larry Collmus just a fortnight out from the big event.
He spoke of his feelings of betrayal in a twitter post this morning and stated the chief reason for five months of sacrifice away from friends and family was for the privilege of commentating on Dubai World Cup night.
However, Alistair only had good wishes for Collmus himself and said, “He truly is a world class commentator and will do the great day justice.”
The 56 year-old Collmus called his first race in 1985 and has been the NBC caller for the Triple Crown and Breeders Cup since 2011 and the NYRA caller since 2014, having earlier been the winter caller at Aqueduct and the full-time caller at Gulfstream Park.
Alistair thanked all the commentators around the world for their messages of support as well as thanking friends and colleagues for the wonderful memories he had built in his two stints in Dubai.
He spoke of the privilege of commentating the 2022 Dubai World Cup.
However, never one to look back, Alistair ended the tweet in the typical upbeat tone of the dynamic young man he is and said, “Now its time to head home, give Candice a hug, sleep in my bed, walk my dogs, light a braai and plot my next move.”
Which Horses Will Be Helped Or Hindered By Soft Ground At Cheltenham?
Racing Post
A week ago, with a bone-dry forecast, Cheltenham clerk of the course Jon Pullin and his team were watering with most expecting the going description for the 2023 Cheltenham Festival to be good. However, a bitter few days of snow and sleet in the Cotswolds has seen the going now changed to soft. We look at the horses it could help, as well as hinder, during the week . . .
Helped
Tahmuras
Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle (1.30 Cheltenham,Tuesday, March 14)
This six-year-old has won his last two starts on soft ground, including the Grade 1 Tolworth Hurdle Constitution Hill took before bolting up in the Supreme Novices’ last year.
Paul Nicholls has compared him to Noland and Al Ferof, who won the festival opener with stamina rather than speed, and the son of Falco has produced generous finishing efforts at undulating tracks like Chepstow and Sandown. Easier ground will definitely be to his advantage, while it could inconvenience some of his rivals.
Tahmuras
13:30 Cheltenham
Jky: Harry Cobden (-lb)
Tnr: Paul Nicholls
Gerri Colombe
Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase (2.10 Cheltenham, Wednesday, March 15)
Given he boasts an unbeaten record, it is unsurprising this novice chaser has shown remarkable versatility. He won the Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase on good to soft going last time but had previously scooped another Grade 1 on soft to heavy at Limerick.
His sire Saddler Maker often produces horses who appreciate ease in the going – Bristol De Mai would be a high-profile example – and a unique mix of speed and stamina ensures he will be feared whatever the description is.
This will be his first attempt at three miles under rules, but a point-to-point victory over the distance indicates it shouldn’t be an issue.
Gerri Colombe
14:10 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Gordon Elliott
Energumene
Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase (3.30 Cheltenham, Wednesday, March 15)
A downpour on the second day of the festival did nothing to stop this exceptional chaser winning last year’s Champion Chase.
Admittedly his three defeats have come on ground soft or worse, but so have some of his most impressive victories. He produced a career-best effort to finish second to Shishkin on soft ground in the Clarence House two years ago and he’s unbeaten in two runs on heavy.
Slower conditions should enable him race further into his comfort zone and he is another with a three-mile point-to-point to his name.
Energumene
15:30 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: W P Mullins
Teahupoo
Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle (3.30 Cheltenham, Thursday, March 16)
This classy hurdler has a distinct preference for testing ground as he is unbeaten in seven starts on worse than soft.
Tackling further than two miles has resulted in a leap forward this campaign, while both of those career-best efforts on Racing Post Ratings came on soft ground.
Gordon Elliott and his team must be delighted with the inclement weather, which will suit him much better than when only beating one horse home in last year’s Champion Hurdle – his trainer cited quick going for his sub-par performance then.
Teahupoo
15:30 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Gordon Elliott
Three Card Brag
Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle (2.50 Cheltenham, Friday, March 17)
Although he still holds entries in the Coral Cup and Martin Pipe, the likeliest destination for this exciting type is seemingly against his fellow novices on Friday.
Of his five starts, his three wins have come on occasions when heavy has been in the going description, while he was only narrowly beaten in a Grade 2 on soft ground in December.
Elliott has been quoted saying he was a “lazy” horse, so good ground would presumably make him more vulnerable, whereas any rain should ensure he is able to find his stride in this typically tough Grade 1.
Three Card Brag
14:50 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Gordon Elliott
Protektorat
Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (3.30 Cheltenham, Friday, March 17)
“Wednesday’s rain turning up today would have been a big help to him,” were the words of Dan Skelton after Protektorat’s third in last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, and his two best performances have come on soft ground in last season’s Many Clouds Chase and in November’s Betfair Chase.
He is also a course winner on soft over hurdles. His sire Saint Des Saints generally produces mudlarks – his progeny boast strike-rates of 44 and 45 per cent on soft and heavy ground.
Protektorat
15:30 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Dan Skelton
Hindered
Camprond
Coral Cup (2.50 Cheltenham, Wednesday, March 15)
This Grade 2 winner’s record on good ground in British hurdle races reads 21142114, while a fourth place in last year’s Coral Cup would surely have been bettered without the heavy showers beforehand.
He’s now 2lb lower than for that effort behind Commander Of Fleet, but would not want conditions to deteriorate and blunt his turn of foot.
Camprond
14:50 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Philip Hobbs
Banbridge
Turners Novices’ Chase (1.30 Cheltenham, Thursday, March 16)
Although twice a winner on soft ground in a maiden and novice hurdle, Banbridge’s best runs have come on decent ground. He is unbeaten in two runs at Cheltenham as he won last year’s Martin Pipe on good to soft and bounced around Prestbury Park on good ground in November.
He has been the recipient of plenty of support in recent weeks but his followers may lose enthusiasm if significant rain arrives.
Banbridge
13:30 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: Joseph Patrick O’Brien
Hewick
Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup (3.30 Cheltenham, Friday, March 17)
Shark Hanlon called for Cheltenham to turn their taps off last month as his stable star has raced and won almost exclusively on good ground in recent seasons, including when scooping last year’s bet365 Gold Cup and Galway Plate.
His sire Virtual won three times on soft, including in the Group 1 Lockinge, but he was pulled up in the Midlands Grand National the only time he has encountered it under rules.
Hewick
15:30 Cheltenham
Jky:
Tnr: John Joseph Hanlon
Turffontein Standside Saturday March 11 Formguides And Selections
www.attheraces.com
1 11H35 – 4Racing Welcomes You Maiden Plate
FISH EAGLE has been runner-up in both starts since being fitted with blinkers and it could be 3rd time lucky. PONTIAC was backed when narrowly beaten on debut and will come on heaps with experience gained. Stablemate ELUSIVE JUSTICE appears held by him but can improve to make the money. SAGAN did well on debut despite blowing and should be on top of them. MAGIC PRINCE is maturing and could have a say. INSIGHTFUL and LABRAUSCO could place.
Top Tip: PONTIAC (11)
Watch out for: FISH EAGLE (1)
2 12H10 – Racing240 For Racing. For You Maiden Plate
POSITIVE ATTITUDE has attracted money in all his starts and could get it right over a preferred distance. WONDERWORLD is threatening and won’t go down without a fight. BRONZE SWORD and QUANTIFIER are challenging now and could get into the action. NGOKUSHESHA and HAROLD THE DUKE is not going to the tops but could take home minor money.
Top Tip: WONDERWORLD (4)
Watch out for: POSITIVE ATTITUDE (3)
3 12H40 – 4Racing Gold Rush Sprint (3 Year-Olds)
Good Gold Rush Sprint and all 8 contestants are in with winning chances. RAFFLES is back over shorter. He was blowing last time but could double up over this trip. WIND WATER found problems last time and should make his presence felt. TEXAS RED and MOVER AND SHAKER are on hat-tricks. MISS DAISY was not striding out last time but has a heavy weight.
Top Tip: UMTHOMBO WOLWAZI (7)
Watch out for: RAFFLES (5)
4 13H15 – 4Racing Derby Trial (Listed) (3 Year-Olds)
The Listed Derby Trial over 2000m is tricky. DESTINY OF SOULS loved the extra and will stay all day. By the same sire is TOP SAIL who has plenty of stamina. Look for a big run. BILLY SPELLBOUND has raced against stronger and should have no problem with the extra. AFRICAN TORRENT is gutsy but could battle with the extra. The balance of the field have decent form but will be tested. Include in Quartets.
Top Tip: TOP SAIL (3)
Watch out for: AFRICAN TORRENT (4)
5 13H50 – Ormond Ferraris Oaks Trial (Listed) (3 Year-Old Fillies)
The Listed Ormond Ferraris Oaks Trial over 2000m looks interesting. IPSO FACTO shaded RARATONGA ROSE (0.5kg better off) over this trip last time and another grueling battle is at hand. LITTLEMARYSUNSHINE is bred for this trip and further but needs to confirm form. The balance are looking to prove their stamina status and will be tested.
Top Tip: RARATONGA ROSE (2)
Watch out for: IPSO FACTO (4)
6 14H25 – Play Soccer 6, 10 And 13 Pinnacle Stakes
Weight could be the key factor. GIMME A SHOT is a well above-average three-year-old filly who gets 7kg from well-performed four-year-old gelding ARAGOSTA. It appears in her favour. WHAFEEF carries 1kg less than GIMME A SHOT which could bring him into the reckoning. OUTOFTHEDARKNESS, WILLOW EXPRESS and BEY SUYAY could get into the money.
Top Tip: ARAGOSTA (1)
Watch out for: GIMME A SHOT (5)
7 15H05 – Senor Santa Stakes (Grade 2)
The Senior Santa Stakes (Grade 2) over 1160m is a crowd puller. Speedsters such as BIG BURN and ROLLWITHTHEPUNCHES (2kg worse off for 1.50 lengths) renew rivalry and could cut each other’s throats. Stablemates, PRINCESS CALLA, THUNDERSTRUCK and FULL VELOCITY as well as BON VIVANT will try and run them down. Timing is the answer. Others are capable of upsetting.
Top Tip: PRINCESS CALLA (2)
Watch out for: BIG BURN (6)
8 15H40 – 4Racing Aquanaut Handicap (Listed)
On recent form ZEUS, MARCHINGONTOGETHER and ARUMUGAM could contest the finish of the Listed Aquanaut Handicap over 2400m. ARUMUGAM was never travelling last time and could get back on track. ZEUS was under a length ahead of MARCHINGONTOGETHER for which he receives 0.5kg. It could get close. RAISEAHALLELUJAH needed his last outing and cannot be ignored. Others are looking for Quartet money.
Top Tip: ARUMUGAM (6)
Watch out for: RAISEAHALLELUJAH (4)
9 16H15 – 4Racing Sun Chariot Handicap (Fillies And Mares)
NAMAQUA BLOSSOM was runner-up in her last 5 starts and hopefully gets her just reward. CAPETOWN BEAUTY will enjoy the long run-in at this track and will be catching late. FLYING FIRST CLASS is a consistent earner and should be thereabouts again. OPERA GLASS has done well this course and distance. The remaining 5 runners are all capable of getting into the Quartet.
Top Tip: FLYING FIRST CLASS (1)
Watch out for: NAMAQUA BLOSSOM (6)
10 16H50 – Next Turffontein Racemeeting Thursday 16 March Middle Stakes
SOUTHERN SONG is handily weighted and if no overweight should contest the finish. She will have to beat younger TAMARISK TREE who wasn’t disgraced in his first run as a gelding. WILLOW’S WISH ran below form last time but races fresh and could resume honest form. Stable companion INVINCIBLE WARRIOR never recovered after a slow start coming off a rest and can only improve.
Top Tip: SOUTHERN SONG (7)
Watch out for: TAMARISK TREE (5)
BSA National Yearling Sale Catalogue Available Online
CLICK HERE to go to the BSA National Yearlings Sales catalogue link.
Picture: Do It Again (Candiese Lenferna).
Today’s Question
Eight-year-old Do It Again will be the first horse to run in six Julys if he lines up in this year’s race. The first to run in five Julys was Red Sands. How old was he when he ran in his last July in 1971.
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture: Red Sands’ best runs were all at Turffontein, which is pictured above in 1947 (Picture: rct.uk).
