Quinton Riddle and Yer-Maan win the Tankard (Pic: Gavin Macleod)
The St John Gray owned and trained Yer-Maan, with Quinton Riddle up, won the Gr1 $50 000 Castle Tankard run over 2000m at Borrowdale Park on Saturday, writes Sheldene Chant.
The 53rd edition of Africa’s oldest sponsored horserace produced a thriller with the Gauteng based owner-trainer St John Gray winning with the lesser fancied of his coupling.
Lucky Sam ran second and was followed by another SA raider in Alyson Wright’s KZN based Warcraft, with Rock The Country in fourth.
Sharon Patterson and Quinton Riddle enjoy the post-race celebrations (Pic: Gavin Macleod)
Yer-Maan, by Jam Alley (AUS) is out of a Jallad mare and was bred by Graystone Stud.
The winning margin was 1.25 lengths.
The talented Yer-Maan proved to be ideally course and distance suited and showed no ill effects after a five month layoff.
He hadn’t run since finishing tailed off in unsuitable soft going in the Gr 2 Victory Moon Stakes at Turffontein last November.
Yer-Maan’s next goal could be the $40 000 OK Grand Challenge to be run at Borrowdale over 1800m on June 6.
