One Stripe gave all of Vaughan Marshall, Gavin Lerena and owner Riskesh Sewgoolam their first respective victories in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate. Marshall accepts the King’s Plate above on behalf of Sewgoolam who watched from home in Durban. (Picture: Wayne Marks)
The Vaughan Marshall-trained One World colt One Stripe became only the third horse in history to win both the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas and Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate in the same season and he provided stalwart trainer Marshall, who has won the Cape Guineas a record equaling six times, with a first ever King’s Plate victory.
One Stripe went off as the 11/10 favourite after being backed in from 5/2 and he proved the adage about form being the best guide.
Gavin Lerena gave him a fine cool-headed ride.
He was happy to drop back initially from draw five to ensure cover and after being forced off the rail just before the turn he was in a one out position with cover behind King Regent.
Lerena did not panic despite being behind the biggest outsider and with his chief market rival Snow Pilot not only ten lengths ahead of him but opening up a lead in front. In the straight Lerena drove the One World colt with the hands all the way to the 200m mark and then gave him a smack. The response was instantaneous and he took off before bursting through between Montien and Gimme A Prince to win by a cosy 1,75 lengths.
It was Lerena’s first victory in South Africa’s premier weight for age mile.
One Stripe provided Drakenstein with a fourth LKP as breeder.
This One World colt should go from strength to strength.
Owner Rikesh Segoolam has a lot to look forward to.
Racing is always an easy game in retrospect and Saturday’s LKP result was easily explainable afterwards.
In fact it was like Dick Whitford, the founder of modern handicapping, once said after studying thousands of racing results during the war while on a British patrol ship, “I kept on making fascinating discoveries – groups of horses that meshed with each other with astonishing precision.”
The first five home on in the LKP on Saturday, One Stripe, Montien, Gimme A Prince, Royal Aussie and Snow Pilot, also meshed with astonishing precision from previous formlines and pundits would have been wondering why they had not seen the obvious beforehand.
In his first race of the season in a Progress Plate over 1400m at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on October 12, One Stripe gave last year’s Cape Guineas winner Snow Pilot 1kg, meaning he was 7,5kg worse off than weight for age, and lost by only a length.
So under the weight for age conditions on Saturday he was going to be an effective 7,5kg better off with Snow Pilot, meaning he would on paper beat the latter by 6,5 lengths.
However, Snow Pilot had been enormously impressive in his second start of the season to the extent that a lot of pundits had tipped him to win the LKP.
But in the end it was form that won the day in their clash on Saturday, with Snow Pilot only managing a 5,30 length fifth, although the race did not pan out perfectly for him from a draw 13 out of 13.
In last year’s King’s Plate Snow Pilot had been beaten 1,90 lengths by third-placed Royal Aussie.
This year Royal finished fourth and beat Snow Pilot by 1,05 lengths.
Montien had finished fifth last year, beating Snow Pilot by 1,25 lengths and losing to Royal Aussie by 0,60 lengths.
However, he had a valid excuse as his rider had dropped the rein at the 300m mark.
So perhaps Montien’s recent Cape Mile run was a better reflection of his ability.
In the latter race he had received 1kg from Royal Aussie and beat him by 2,30 lengths, so on that form should have beaten him by 1,30 in the LKP.
It wasn’t far off as he beat Royal Aussie by 2,80 lengths.
In the Cape Mile Montien had given the versatile Gimme A Prince 1kg and lost to him by a head, meaning he should beat him by 0,90 lengths in the LKP. On Saturday he beat by 0,80 lengths.
The only two horses who did not mesh correctly were See It Again and Al Muthana.
See It Again was the runner up last year, beating all of Royal Aussie, Al Muthana, Montien and Snow Pilot, but this year finished last, while Al Muthana finished fourth last year, but only beat one horse home this year.
However, the race panned out terribly for the KZN star See It Again and not well for Al Muthana.
From draw eight See It Again was about to slot in behind King Regent in a one out position in midfield just before the turn when Al Muthana slowing down on the rail forced One Stripe behind him to come off the rail, thus forcing See It Again out wide again.
It was surprising the incident was not mentioned in the stipendiary steward report, particularly considering Alistair Cohen had said in his commentary, “Al Muthana’s just dropping back on the rail and causing a bit of traffic.”
However, the actual cause of this might have been the perennial problem in SA racing of a horse crossing another horse without being sufficiently clear, a problem the stipes often seem to ignore.
Montien crossed to the rail to take the lead and forced JP van der Merwe to strangle Oriental Charm as the former was not sufficiently clear.
In fact Oriental Charm even pecked.
The stipendiary steward report said, “Racing into the turn at the 1200m, ORIENTAL CHARM (JP van der Merwe) was steadied when close to the heels of MONTIEN (C Orffer).”
If he was close to the latter’s heels, then it follows Montien was not suffiently clear when crossing him, but no inquiry?
Gimme A Prince was behind Oriental Charm and Al Muthana was behind the latter, so Al Muthana could be excused for slowing down.
After that incident See It Again remained out wide for the rest of the race and he duly found nothing in the straight.
Al Muthana was not unduly effected by the aforementioned incident, but is not the horse he once was.
However, Oriental Charm might have been effected as he did peck and he did not find in the same way he had found when winning the Gr 2 WSB Green Point Stakes impressively. He finished a disappointing 8,95 length seventh.
Snow Pilot’s race on Saturday did not pan out well and it has to also be said his optimum trip is 1400m.
From a wide draw of 13 he was going to ideally reach the turn first and take up his favourite role, dictating from the front.
However, the other two known front-running types in the field, Montien and Oriental Charm, got there in front of him and he was forced to go around Montien on the turn to find the front.
He opened up a clear lead, but could not maintain it, suggesting he prefers 1400m, although having to work harder than ideal for the lead probably took its toll too.
One horse who did not disappoint was Lucky Lad, who turned for home way out of his ground in last place and ran on well for a 5,70 length sixth, thus proving he is effective over a mile.
The first to ever do the Guineas/King’s Plate double was Convalesce (by Asbestos II out of Recuperate). He did it in the year 1948 when the King’s Plate was run on October 30. Most of the field were three-year-olds and Convalesce only had to carry the equivalent of 48kg, whilst topweight amongst the older horses was 60.5kg.
The second to do it was the legendary In Full Flight in 1972. David Payne still rates this son of New South Wales as the best he ever trained. In the Guineas run at Milnerton on February 5 1972, Sentinel under Michael Roberts got first run on him and in one of the most famous results in the big race’s history In full Flight, under Clive Hyde, could only get up to dead-heat. However, In Full Flight showed who was boss in the Queen’s Plate. He beat Sentinel by 2,45 lengths under Raymond Rhodes with the ten-year-old stalwart William Penn beaten 4,25 lengths into third and twice Queen’s Plate winner Chichester finishing a 4,50 length fourth.
Interestingly, In Full Flight carried only 50kg and received 7kg from the older topweights, while One Stripe only received 5kg on Saturday. The race must have had other conditions attached back in 1972.
