Tienie Prinsloo and Gavin Lerena share an motional moment after Tienie had landed his first Gr 1 victory and Gavin had landed his first Gr 1 WSB Cape Fillies Guineas victory (Picture: Wayne Marks)
Tienie Prinsloo has said Gr 1 WSB Cape Fillies Guineas heroine Quickstepgal would not be considered for the Gr 1 Cartier Paddock Stakes and would be coming home to Summerveld. Her future program would be decided from there.
Tienie recalled going to the KZN Yearling Sale venue last year to inspect the horses and starting on Lot 1, but after inspecting Lot 5 he said to his wife, “Let’s turn around and go home. She said, ‘Why?’, I said I’ve found my horse.”
Lot 5 was the Vercingetorix filly Quickstepgal, bred by Marsh Shirtliff’s Greenacres Trust, and she was destined to give him his first Gr 1 win.
He recalled going back to the Sale ground the next day and looking at a few more horses, while noticing nobody else was looking at Lot 5.
He said, “I took Rakesh Singh to look at her and said to him, ‘Rakesh this is the horse you must buy for me, please.’ He said, ‘You want her I am going to buy her for you, it doesn’t matter what she goes for.’ We sat together for the bidding and he just kept on putting his hand up and we got her.”
The price of R450,000 is a lot before a horse has raced, but she soon proved to be a bargain and Rakesh would have profited handsomely when selling her in training to prolific owners, the Laurence Wernars family and Harry Wilsson.
Tienie is still feeling on top of the world after Saturday’s big win.
He said, “It still feels like my heart is sitting outside my body, it is still not totally there yet. But just to stand on that podium, where you have won a Gr 1 and Laurence Wernars is looking at you and then you start getting that something in your throat like you want to cry. It is just unbelievable, I can’t even describe how nice it is. A normal winner is nice, but to have a winner for big owners like them and it is a Gr 1 and you standing there waiting to go on the stage, it touches you. You overflow with happiness, it is just amazing and then everybody just comes to you and says, ‘Well done, well done, well done,’ I mean even Eric Sands had tears in his eyes and I could see too that Laurence was emotional. It meant a lot to him. It was a nice day. Very nice.”
Many would have liked to have trained Quickstepgal but Laurence was adamant that the filly would stay with the small yard of Tienie Prinsloo and the latter has proved it to be not just a gentlemanly decision but a beneficial one for the owners too.
Tienie revealed that Quickstepgal had endured a tough journey down from KZN, which made her run in the Gr 2 Western Cape Fillies Championship, where she finished a 1,75 length fourth, most commendable.
He said, “With all the roadworks she spent 36-and-a-half hours on the float. It took a lot out of her and she was very tired. She almost didn’t want to eat. She was nibbling here and there but we thought we are going to have to go for the Gr 2, because she must see the track. Gavin was not hard on her and I think just gave her one smack in the last 100m and she just stayed on. She was slowly running at them. She had lost 25kg before that race from the journey down and she gained about 13 to 14kg after that race. She regained her weight and she looked so much more happy.”
Tienie had nothing but high praise for caretaker trainer Eric Sands.
He said, “We left her there with Eric. What a great horseman. I couldn’t be more happy for Eric to help me, he is a master of note. He is an unbelievable guy. He has become one of my best friends. He will always be in my good books. He is a guy who will help you with anything and he won’t even blink an eyelid. He looked after her very well. We went down there and I looked at her and I said to Eric ‘Gee whiz this filly is looking very well, hey’.”
He continued, “And she won the race. Once she turned for home and she quickened I said to my wife, ‘Listen here, I don’t think they will catch her.’ Richard came up to her and Eric’s other horse Stormwatch came on the inside. That was 300m out but we just kept on rolling to win the race. She won a very, very nice race.”
Tienie said he had left the tactics to Gavin Lerena and praised him for fine ride and a clever one.
Lerena wanted the filly to use her fine action so was happy to dictate and she was always going to be a hard one to catch once she had relaxed in front.
Tienie and Gavin go back a long way and he remembered him once phoning him when he was training in Kimberley and said, “Tienie I need some winners to win the championship and I said, ‘Come down.’”
On Saturday Gavin leant off his horse as he was being led in and gave Tienie a hug and said, “I am so happy for you.”
The winning trainer described that as the most special moment of all coming from a man he described as the finest of gentleman.
Tienie did reserve some praise for himself too.
He said, “I don’t want to race her too much. She is a special filly. I would rather go for the races which are perfect for her than taking on the big guns, because she is still a three-year-old. She doesn’t have anything to prove anymore. She’s very lighly raced, eight runs for five wins and two places. I really think I have planned it very nicely for her.”
He is going to stick to 1400m to a mile for her for the time being.
Tienie reserved the last word for his wife and was amazed and grateful by how she had been able to stand by him through all all of the many pressurised times that happen in the toughest of professions, training racehorses.
