Good double for Mike Bass
Forget about 40 days in the wilderness. Trainer Paddy Kruyer only got on the score sheet once in over 100, leaving him feeling as sick as if he had been confined to a diet of locusts, writes Michael Clower.
However they finally tasted like wild honey when Breath Of Autumn and Hellzapoppin landed a 71-1 double at Durbanville on Saturday. “Everybody else had the cough early on but it came to me at the weekend,” said the Milnerton trainer feelingly.
Shattered Dreams
But there was more to it than that. Some of the big race dreams – notably Kimberly Al – turned into nightmares and even Saturday’s winners saw more vets than an Onderstepoort reunion.
“Breath Of Autumn cracked her humerus in a race and, when we got her back to the track, she did the same to her pelvis while Hellzapoppin has been plagued with little problems,” Kruyer explained, but at least the second winner gave the bookies problems of their own when the money went down at 14-1. Robert Khathi duly delivered the goods to reach the 25-winner mark and he also initiated the stable double to reward Garth Miller and Basil Nelson for their seemingly endless patience.
Bass Double
Mike Bass was also in double form, for the second day running, with Margaret Mason on hand to see Grant van Niekerk on Maties Wildekat thwarting First Favour’s bid to make all in the 1 000m handicap.
Aldo Domeyer followed up 35 minutes later, hitting the front 100m out on Pat Devine’s homebred Grasp Your Destiny to leave Billy Prestage scratching his head in frustration. He ran three and, had Bass left his at home, the veteran trainer would have taken the first three places.
Glen Kotzen was another left wondering what might have been. He used to train Mister Matchett and in the Soccer 6 Maiden his Gigabyte was beaten three-quarters of a length by the ex-Woodhill horse.
Adams Owned
Hassen Adams moved Mister Matchett
Owner Hassen Adams explained: “I moved Mister Matchett to Darryl Hodgson as I am trying to consolidate everything with him and the Snaiths. The idea is to build up the Hodgson stable into a very strong one. We are going to keep it to a maximum of 55 horses and we have some lovely two-year-olds.”
Karl Neisius rode Mister Matchett when his fans were still puzzling over the ride he gave Dinesen in the preceding All To Come Maiden. This bore no resemblance to the customary ‘Cool Karl’ getting up in the shadow of the post. Instead he struck for home fully 300m out and promptly drove Rhona Beck’s evens favourite seven lengths clear. Neisius, chuckling at the questions he knew full well that he had created, explained: “I didn’t want to take any chances because so many times she has got there but not gone through with it.”
New Cap
Now that the filly has finally got the message, albeit only at the tenth attempt, perhaps she will do it again because Dean Kannemeyer remarked: “She is better than her racecourse form would suggest.” Greg Ennion christened his new racing cap – striped instead of black – when Perpetua came out of the pens as if she had a rocket up her tail. Not even Anton Marcus could have got her away quicker than Chris Puller did and the race was over before the straight.
“I’m not superstitious,” said Ennion, somewhat unconvincingly. “But it was important that these new colours should win first time.”
The Yogas Govender-trained Jet Turbine, supported from evens to 6-10 in the last, proved to be the proverbial certainty. “Once I hit the front it was an absolute procession,” summed up Domeyer.
