The brilliant dual SA Horse Of The Year Variety Club surprised defending champion Soft Falling Rain to win the $1 million Godolphin Mile at Meydan last Saturday. The race turned out to be a victorious battle between South African trainers and horses.
The son of Avontuur stallion Var is trained by Joey Ramsden and led from start to finish to beat Mike de Kock’s Soft Falling Rain comfortably. Flotilla ran third.
Special
Trainer Joey Ramsden said: “To come here to compete means a lot, but to win is something special. Anton gave him a fantastic ride, and he got into a soft lead, and this gives me so much pleasure and all of South Africa. It may take a while to sink in.”
Marcus rode a brilliant race to get the start colt over from his 15 draw and e was never headed thereafter.
Variety Club was bred by Beaumont Stud and Anton Shepherd was on hand to assist with the lead in.
The magic miler transferred to Mike De Kock on Sunday and is headed east.
Riches
African Story wins the big one
The Dubai World Cup is the richest day of horse racing in the world and was watched by an on course crowd of 80 000 people from all over the globe.
The nine-race card saw an incredible US$27,250,000 shared in prize money including a US$10,000,000 bounty to the horse winning the main event of the evening.
African Story won the evening’s pinnacle, the Dubai World Cup to give trainer Saeed bin Suroor and the Godolphin stable a sixth win in the world’s richest race.
Seven countries were represented in the race, but the result was a clean sweep for the ruling Al Maktoum family of Dubai.
Earlier jockey Jamie Spencer helped 33-1 chance Certerach cause an upset in the Dubai Gold Cup, before riding Toast Of New York to victory in the UAE Derby.
Shea Shea
Amber Sky wins the Al Quoz Sprint
Brazilian jockey Joao Moreira delivered a masterclass aboard Hong Kong raider Amber Sky to win a super-hot renewal of the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint, sponsored by Ipic, on Saturday.
The jockey, who has stockpiled three Group 1 wins at Sha Tin this season, rode a confident race aboard the 7-2 second favourite to score by a quarter length from Godolphin’s fast-improving Ahtough and South Africa’s Shea Shea, who was looking for back-to-back wins in the fine contest run on a straight turf course.
A case could be made for the Klawervlei bred Shea Shea’s defeat, as he was last of 12 at the 400m mark, and even though he gave his all for Belgian jockey Christophe Soumillon, it always looked a lost cause. Amber Sky and Ahtough were simply bolting to the line and never looked like conceding ground.
Vercingetorix
Japan’s Just a Way is a 5yo , who has won just two of his first 15 career starts smashed a top international field in the $5 million Gr1 Dubai Duty Free Sponsored by Dubai Duty Free .
Just a Way took command early stretch and drew off to an easy win in the 1,800m race over the previously unbeaten Silvano colt, Vercinetorix, who had won the Emirates Airline Jebel Hatta on Super Saturday at his previous start.
