Stuart Pettigrew is a trainer whose horses continually improve and it was not surprising his maiden Feather Boa won the R400,000 BSA Sales Cup over 1300m on Hollywoodbets Durban July day.
His simple explanation for buying her was, “I love Flower Alleys. But I only buy the fillies. So she was a Flower Alley filly and was very well put together.”
He bought her for R200,000 at the BSA August Two-year-old Sale and she is owned today by Messrs W D Jackson, M J Campbell, A D Marx & C C Valjalo.
It was fitting that the first two winner of the day were bred by Wilgerbosdrift and Mauritzfontein, considering Mary Slack went on to win her first July as an owner.
Richard Fourie dropped the chestnut filly out to last from a wide draw of 12.
In the straight he switched her right to the outside and she ran on strongly to get up a tad cosily by 0,40 lengths from the Ivan and Darryl Moore-trained Canadian Summer (Oratorio).
The Fanie Bronkhorst-trained Kill Shot (Elusive Fort) was third ahead of the Justin Snaith-trained Butterfly Beauty (Elusive Fort) and the Billy Ruiters-trained Miss Daisy (Crusade).
Pettigrew has a fine record at Hollywoodbets Greyville over the last five years.
He has sent out 23 runners for ten wins, a strike rate of just over 43%.
These wins include the Grade 1 Thekwini with Anything Goes (Var), whom he said was the best filly he ever trained.
She unfortunately had to be retired after just three runs as a three-year-old due to an ongoing joint issue and she is now at stud.
Picture: Feather Boa (Candiese Lenferna)