The Drakenstein home-bred machine continued on their relentless silverware gathering march through the 2022/23 feature season at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Wednesday.
This time the honours and accolades went to the promising dual stakes-placed What A Winter filly Distant Winter who stamped her authority on the R200 000 Gr3 Winter Nursery with a sweeping victory under Grant van Niekerk, who labelled her ‘a filly to follow’.
Distant Winter (Grant van Niekerk) holds off the late challenge of October Morn (Craig Zackey) in an exciting finish to the feature (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
After a terrific Saturday on the East Coast, where the combination picked up a Gr2 double, Candice Bass-Robinson was again the winning trainer and enjoyed the honour of saddling the exacta, with recent maiden winner October Morn (4-1) chasing her stablemate home.
Distant Winter (3-1) was too strong and held the advantage to win by 0,40 lengths in a time of 63,57 secs.
Blue Holly (14-1) showed plenty of speed and ran a cracker for third, a further 1,25 lengths back.
The tote favourite Baltic Secret (7-2) made it a fairer-sex dominated quartet. The daughter of Querari was examined at the start after an incident in the gate. She was passed fit to race and then tracked right across and round the back of the field. The fact that she ran this close was commendable and she is one for the notebook.
Watch the replay here:
Distant Winter, who will now be given a well-deserved break, has won 2 of 5 starts with 3 places (including a runner-up slot in the colt’s nursery!) for stakes of R483 113. She is out of the twice-winning Trippi mare, Fromafar.
Her victory maintained the excellent moment of her triple Equus Champion What A Winter who is enjoying a serious title-chasing term. He is also currently South Africa’s Leading Sire of 2YO’s for 2022-2023 by stakes.
