Candice Bass-Robinson and Justin Snaith shared the first six races on the opening day of the 2021 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate Festival.
The Snaith team grabbed the first feature cherry though as Elusive Fortune rallied gamely under a cracking ride by Grant van Niekerk to win the R100 000 Ardmore Listed Jamaica Handicap.
With 59 runners between them over the two days, the two powerful local yards always looked set to dominate and picked up three winners apiece with two races left, as the Cape Doctor did his rounds at a sun-drenched, but deserted, Kenilworth.
Grant van Niekerk gets Elsuive Fortune to rally down the rail as Sleeeping Single (Richard Fourie) challenges (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
In a tricky looking fillies and mares handicap, Grant van Niekerk produced a great tactical piece of race-riding over the 2000m, as he lead the eight-horse charge on Elusive Fortune (5-1), and then gave his mount a breather halfway down the home straight, before coming right back to snare her topweighted favourite stablemate Sleeping Single (4-1) late and win by 0,20 lengths in a time of 126,05 secs.
Glen Kotzen’s handily weighted Catchafallingstar (8-1) produced a smart late effort up the centre, but just failed to go on with her run and finished a further 0,30 length away in third.
The Ambiance Stud-bred winner is a daughter of SA Champion Stayer Elusive Fort (Fort Wood) out of the Al Mufti mare, Muhtaram.
She cost R40 000 on the 2017 CTS March Yearling Sale and has won 7 races with 9 places from 28 starts for stakes of R356 875.
