With the winter sun lazily poking his nose through a cloudy sky, the Kenilworth Saturday feature programme got under way on soft ground as Justin Snaith favourite Pomp And Power made it a hat-trick of wins with a well earned feature success in the R100 000 Goals And Gallops Gr3 Langerman.
The going was declared soft after 70mm of rain in the previous seven days and punters may have expected a tricky result.
Pomp And Power (noseband) finishes strongly under Richard Fourie to beat Waiting For Summer (Keagan de Melo) and pacemaker Night Ruler (Grant van Niekerk) in a favourable result (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
But things started well on the six feature card.
With his stablemate Night Ruler doing the donkey work in the 1500m feature, Pomp And Power relaxed in second with the Bass-Robinson challenger Waiting For Summer a length back in third.
Beyond a brief awkward moment on the bend, Richard Fourie rode a copybook race on the even money favourite as the son of Vercingetorix exerted himself and went past the leader with 200m to run.
But recent maiden winner Waiting For Summer was enjoying the underfoot conditions and took the Snaith topweight on.
In an exciting finish in the six horse field, Pomp And Power was too strong and gave Waiting For Summer two kilos and a neck beating in a time of 100, 36 secs.
Richard Fourie casts a lonely figure on the winner’s podium (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Night Ruler ran a game race but tired late for third.
The winner is raced by the big hitting trio of Greg Bortz, Etienne Braun and Marsh Shirtliff and looks full value for his R250 000 National Yearling Sale price tag.
A winner now of 3 races from 4 starts and stakes of R128 400, Pomp And Power was bred by Maine Chance from their terrific new generation sire Vercingetorix (Silvano). The winner is out of the unraced Candy Stripes mare, Peru – a half sister to champion, Paraca.
Best remembered from this lovely family will be the Stan Elley star Punta Arenas, who gave the Badge Boys such thrills.
