Tony And Paul Peter are among the ecstatic onnections who lead in Bavarian Beauty (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
The lure of training racehorses was too much for Tony Peter, son and former assistant to the 2021/2022 SA Champion trainer Paul Peter.
He took out his own license at the beginning of this year, just a handful of months after his father had announced his shock retirement.
Tony had a winner with his first runner and was soon as prolific as Paul, who broke the record for the most winners in one SA season in his championship-winning term, 221.
Tony scored 46 wins in his first season, despite starting in January, and had by far the highest strike rate in the country at 26%.
He did particularly well with ex-Cape Town-trained horses.
His first stakes success was with Leaving Las Vegas (Rafeef) in the Gr 3 Pretty Polly Stakes over 1100m.
He later scored a Gr 2 win with Cold Fact (What A Winter) in the Camellia Stakes over 1160m.
Dennis Schwarz rode both of those first two yard Graded winners.
Tony waited until the last day of the season at Hollywoodbets Greyville to score his first stakes race double.
He won the Listed @Worldpool Twitter Handicap over 1600m with newcomer to the yard Meridius, a progressive three-year-old gelding by Canford Cliffs, who could go on from here because he was caught wide the whole way yet showed a blistering turn of foot under Craig Zackey.
Later, Bavarian Beauty (Querari) caused a 20/1 shock in the Gr 1 Douglas Whyte Thekwini Stakes. She clearly relished the step up in trip and powered home to win by 1,50 lengths under Zackey from the fancied trio Egyptian Mau, Distant Winter and Rascova. She should also have a bright future.
If Tony goes on in this vein he could be challenging for the trainers championship soon … he just needs a big horse or two to add earning power to his high strike rate.
