The Cape Summer Season has come and gone. Terrific finishes. Champions crowned. Crowd counting. Drama and finger pointing. And even shattered egos. It really had it all.
Crowds scene (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
While the season has been stretched and compressed, tinkered with and shuffled up, one aspect that has not changed in decades of top notch racing in South Africa’s premier fun and sun destination is the quality of the horses that entertained us so royally for almost three months.
Betting turnovers are under pressure.
The Met crowd is a shadow of its former self from the halcyon days where the gates were closed and visitor number 50001 was turned away.
The annual Prawns Day last Saturday was rumoured to have attracted more people than the Cape flagship day three weeks earlier. That’s plain crazy!
Mark Currie – new Co Chairman
There was a changing of the guard as Mark Currie and Robert Bloomberg stepped into the hot seat in early December when appointed Co Chairman of the mink and manure region, and the new men at the helm will be juggling with the early poser of prawners versus punters, and other strategic options as 2019 looms as a watershed year.
But how difficult can it be?
The country’s leading breeders, most powerful owners, top trainers, best horses and a host of sideshows like the winelands, the mountains and the deep blue sea should really make the Cape a winner before they have even left the starting gates.
Beautiful place (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
Through all the uncertainty, we were privileged to watch eight top drawer Gr1 contests amongst the 31 features showcased and every one of those winners will be back to provide more thrills – whether in the SA Champions Season arena, the Highveld or even on the world stage in the years to come.
SA champion trainer Justin Snaith led the charge with three Gr1 winners. His stable jockey Richard Fourie also marked three Gr1 winners and Drakenstein Stud bred three Gr1 winners.
Clouds Unfold wins Majorca (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
There were notable icebreakers too. Drakenstein stallion What A Winter enjoyed his first Gr1 courtesy of Clouds Unfold in the Majorca Stakes. Twenty two year old Joburg based Diego De Gouveia rode his first Gr1 winner when Australian bred Atyaab won the Cape Derby on Met day. And let’s not forget the 62 year old Milnerton stalwart Eric Sands who saddled an emotional first Met winner with Rainbow Bridge.
It was early days still when the Gr2 Green Point Stakes, a traditional precursor to the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate and the Met, produced a finish hailed as one of the greatest in living memory.
We suggested that this had the makings of the race of the century and that the marketing scriptwriters could not have dreamt up the plot. Well it panned out perfectly, thanks to four top horses and a polished performance by a jockey at the very pinnacle of his game.
With an absence of pace and any commitment to lead in the small field, Anton Marcus did what he has done before on Legal Eagle and took the initiative – before Corne Orffer figured the plot and took Gr1 Gold Challenge winner Undercover Agent to lead after 500m, with July winner Do It Again and the unbeaten Rainbow Bridge further back. With storming challenges coming on all sides, Legal Eagle was 50/50 for his biggest fight ever as Marcus got the champion to dig half an inch deeper.
The photo revealed that the evergreen 7yo had held on by a nose to win his third straight Green Point Stakes. He beat Undercover Agent, with Do It Again and Rainbow Bridge completing the quartet – a short head separating each in one of the greatest finishes any of us is likely to see in our lifetime.
Legal Eagle wins the Green Point (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
Sadly Legal Eagle was unable to go on and register his fourth successive L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate victory a month later.
With trainers suddenly very mindful of pace, the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate saw a pacemaker imported from another province – and was a true run affair. It was the season’s star performers Richard Fourie and Justin Snaith who produced the goods when Do It Again joined Mike Bass gallopers Trademark and Pocket Power as one of only three horses to achieve the July – Queen’s Plate double this century.
Despite being the top performing jockey of the summer, Fourie went from hero to zero in minutes on Sun Met day, when after running second to a top class Anton Marcus and Rainbow Bridge, he was called in by the Stipes to explain his ride on the favourite.
Nothing came of the hullabaloo and life has gone on. But that’s racing.
What’s your personal standout moment? Write a comment and tell us.
Snaith Racing (photo: Wayne Marks)
The Gr1 Trainers
Justin Snaith – 3
Mike de Kock – 2
Brett Crawford – 1
Eric Sands – 1
Candice Bass-Robinson – 1
Drakenstein
The Gr1 Breeders
Drakenstein Stud – 3
Arrowfield Stud – 1
Highlands – 1
Northfields Stud – 1
Shadwell Australasia – 1
Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein – 1
Captain Al – champion
The Gr1 Sires
Captain Al (Al Mufti)
Dundeel (High Chaparral)
Dynasty (Fort Wood)
Epaulette (Commands)
Ideal World (Kingmambo)
Street Cry (Machiavellian)
Twice Over (Observatory)
What A Winter (Western Winter)
Richard Fourie (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
The Gr1 Jockeys
Richard Fourie – 3
Anton Marcus -2
Aldo Domeyer – 1
Diego De Gouveia – 1
Randall Simons -1
