A daughter of Ridgemont Highlands’ exciting young sire Rafeef, the Sean Tarry-trained Mounia showed her rivals a clean pair of heels to win the inaugural R550 000 Cape Yearling Sale Cup at Kenilworth on Saturday.
In a race dominated by the fairer sex, fillies filled the top four places, with the top three finishers drawn on the extreme outside.
Anton Marcus goes all the way on Mounia (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Owner Chris van Niekerk and trainer Sean Tarry were dominant in the sales-linked races in years past and despite having the crackerjack Anton Marcus aboard on Saturday, Mounia was easy to back at 7-1.
The consummate professional, Marcus had walked the track in the morning and had plotted a path to victory down the outside.
While the drones were a welcome innovation for some sweeping aerial shots during the afternoon, the Kenilworth cameraman appeared to have forgotten the Rainbow Bridge lesson of Met day, and Mounia was unsighted for much of the race as she led from gun to tape to win under the hands.
The R200 000 daughter of Rafeef (Redoute’s Choice) clocked 74,34 secs as she beat the 100-1 Veronique under the hands by 2,75 lengths.
The runner-up, trained by Greg Ennion, cost just R15 000, while third placed Jet For Time (33-1) was a R30 000 buy.
Justin Snaith’s fourth placer Homely Girl (9-2) cost R50 000.
Stakes were paid all the way down to sixth finisher.
BSA’s Mike Holmes was on hand to deliver the winner’s cheque (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The winner was bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein and is out of the twice winning Encosta De Lago mare, Modern Muse.
She has now earned R250 000 in two starts, courtesy of Saturday’s bumper cheque.
The 2021 renewal of the Cape Yearling Sale starts at 12h30 on Sunday.
A similar linked race is offered to qualifying graduates.
