Close! Forest Indigo (Kevin Shea) nearest camera, gets the better of Kochka (purple cap)
Varsfontein Stud’s exciting A.P. Indy stallion Judpot quickly followed the example set by Trippi in the fillies equivalent, when he registered a scintillating early first Gr1 winner as Kevin Shea got Forest Indigo to dig deep in the final strides of the R600 000 Gr1 Durban Golden Horseshoe at Greyville on Saturday.
The win was also significant as it was the second Group win on the afternoon for Alec Laird and Kevin Shea, after Master Plan had streaked home to win the Gr3 Mango 2200 a few hours earlier.
This time Shea had to work for his commission, as Alyson Wright’s Kochka burst through the middle late and looked to have done enough to have won.
The Gold Medallion winner Captain Of All was the natural public favourite after his terrific win at Scottsville at the end of May. He jumped at 7 to 2 second favourite on support for Mike De Kock’s Full Combat, while there was some interest in Willow Magic who jumped from somewhere in the parking lot.
As Happy Valentine had done in the previous race, Sean Cormack took the Riverton Stud bred son of Captain Al to lead them early. The subtle difference here though was that Cormack was going at a reasonable clip, unlike his colleague on Happy Valentine.
Inside the final 300m Captain Of All continued to gallop and appeared to be going on to score the sought after Gr1 double. But Shea had other ideas and he brought Forest Indigo down the outside with a storming run.
Into the final 100m Glen Hatt got Kochka to fly and the Black Minnaloushe gelding sliced between the two with a sustained run.
The three went to the line with only a neck separating them.
The judge took a good three minutes to split them and Forest Indigo was declared the winner by a short head to much elation and applause in the parade ring.
He won at 29 to 1 in a time of 86,25 secs.
Kochka was not disgraced in a second placed defeat, while Captain Of All will surely win plenty of races. He only tired late and was not stopping. The other two were flying!
The SA Nursery winner Willow Magic ran a fair fourth from his awful draw, while the fancied Full Combat found the draw a stopper and ran seventh.
Forest Indigo was bred by Varsfontein Stud and is by Judpot out of the four time winning Fort Wood mare Albizia.
He came in here off a fair third behind Zambezi Torrent in the Gatecrasher Stakes.
He is a winner of 2 races with 1 place from his 4 starts for stake earnings of R440 750
A National Yearling Sale graduate, Forest Indigo cost Chris Gerber R160 000
The champagne would have been flowing down Varsfontein way.
Judpot’s sire, A P Indy, was Horse of the Year in the US, and subsequently headed the US general sires list twice.
To date, A P Indy has sired over 120 stakes winners, including a host of top-class feature race winners. He has sired such Gr1 winners as Aptitude, Bernardini, Mineshaft, Secret Status, Rags to Riches and Tempera, to name a few.
A P Indy’s leading sire sons include Pulpit, Malibu Moon, Mineshaft and Bernardini.
Judpot is out of the great racemare Miesque, whose 10 G1 wins include two scores in the Gr1 Breeders Cup Mile. Miesque produced five stakes winners, including French classic winners East of the Moon and Kingmambo. The latter, in turn, became a world leading sire of 80 stakes winners.
Judpot stands at Varsfontein for a fee of R20 000.
He looks great value and quite exciting too!
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Golden Horseshoe (SAf-G1) (7/6) Greyville, South Africa, July 6, R600.000, 1400m, turf, good, 1.26.25. 1 –FOREST INDIGO (SAF), 58.0, b c 2, Judpot (USA) – Albizia (SAF) by Fort Wood (USA). Owner MC Gerber; breeder Varsfontein Stud; trainer AG Laird; jockey K Shea (R375.000) 2 –Kochka (SAF), 58.0, b g 2, Black Minnaloushe (USA) – Little Strike (SAF) by Elliodor (FR) . 3 –Captain Of All (SAF), 58.0, b c 2, Captain Al (SAF) – Serious Side (SAF) by Fard (GB) Margins: nose, nk, 2
