Picture: Querari filly Heritage Ridge was ridden for the first time on Monday
Turf Talk
The Turf Talk syndicate’s first two horses, Querari filly Heritage Ridge and Duke Of Marmalade filly Garden Of Eden, have both been ridden for the first time this week during their backing and pre-training with Monique Schabort at Paarl Diamant Estate.
Lisa Hattingh does the backing on the farm and said, “Our process is we start by lunging them, and then I put them under a long rein, and then we put the rider on top.”
She continued, “The fillies are going very nicely. The first filly Heritage Ridge was ridden for the first time on Monday and the second filly Garden Of Eden was ridden for the first time on Tuesday. They are both nice fillies and are working well under saddle at the moment. We are only trotting in the lunge ring at the moment, we don’t go faster than trots. Heritage Ridge, being a Querari, can be a little bit high strung. She gives her moment and then she starts working nicely like she should. Garden Of Eden is a lovely filly. She is nice and laid back, she enjoys her work. She comes to work, does her job, and that’s it.”
She added, “Conformation wise they are both quite nicely put together fillies. I like horses with a good hindquarter and they both have nice hindquarters on them, you want the power at the back!”
She continued, “We will move up to the track next week. Generally we have them trotting on the track for two weeks before we put them into a slow canter and we then work them up from there. ”
Paarl Diamant Estate is 30 km away from Durbanville racecourse.
It has a fine pre-training record.
Of the current crop of three-year-olds who were backed and pre-trained at Paarl Diamant Estate, 40 of them have raced and 50% of those have won and 80% in total have been in the money.
“So far we have only had eight horses from that crop unplaced,” said Lisa.
Lisa has been working with horses for years.
She worked in the Eastern Cape with both Alan Greeff and Gavin Smith and in her stint at Jane Thomas’s Far End from 2014 to 2020 she worked with horses of the calibre of It’s My Turn and African Night Sky.
So Heritage Ridge and Garden Of Eden are in fine hands.
Watch out for Garden Of Eden’s Elusive Fort half-brother Irish Luck running on Sunday at Hollywoodbets Scottsville in the third race over 1400m. This Duncan Howells-trained gelding finished second in his second start and should have a chance despite a wide draw.
Meanwhile, Heritage Ridge’s Stuart Ferrie-trained Fire Away half-brother King’s Island finished second in a 1600m handicap on the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly last week.
Watch out for the first Paarl Diamant Estate runner from the current two-year-old crop, the Sean Tarry-trained Laurence Wernars-homebred Gimmethegreenlight colt Proceed, who is out of Captain Al mare Xplosive Kiss. He runs in the 800m scurry on Betway Summer Cup day.
