Gr1 Empress Club: Dancewiththedevil impressive

Dancewiththedevil blows the field away in the Gr1 Empress Club S

.Dancewiththedevil left nobody but the most stubborn in any doubt that she belongs at the top of the older middle distance female pecking order when she gave another impressive display in the Laurie Jaffee Empress Club Stakes over 1600m at Turffontein (standside) on Tuesday night, writes Matthew Lips.

Many pundits felt with considerable justification that Dancewiththedevil might have been flattered by her demolition of top class male rivals on WFA terms in the Gr 1 Horse Chestnut Stakes over the same course-and-distance in late March.  That race was run on a very wet track which plainly wasn’t to the liking of all of her rivals, but despite a brief sharp shower before and during the running of the first race conditions on Tuesday were much more conventional.   This proved to be of no hindrance whatsoever for Dancewiththedevil, who went off as the 22/10 favourite in this WFA contest for fillies and mares.  Promising three-year-old Welwitschia was one of five entries from the Mike de Kock yard and was well supported to start as the 5/2 second favourite in a field of 13, with fellow De Kock entry the 7/1 third choice of punters in her first appearance since finding the slow pace completely against her in the Gr 1 J & B Met in January.

The early pace was decent in the Empress Club, with Miss Turbulence showing the way ahead of Headstrong and the eventual winner’s stable companion Engagement.  Queen’s Bay was next in line as Welwitschia and Flirtation were held up in the pack and Dancewiththedevil – as is her wont – brought up the rear a good dozen lengths off the leader.   Miss Turbulence began to feel the pinch inside the last 300m and soon weakened.  Headstrong looked briefly dangerous wider out as Welwitschia began to make good and steady headway, but Dancewiththedevil was in the process of unleashing her trademark turn of foot over towards the inside.  She had them all well held racing into the final furlong and drew right away under S’manga Khumalo to win by a most emphatic four lengths  from Welwitschia.  The runner-up proved no match for Dancewiththedevil when all is said and done, but she was far from disgraced in what was only the fourth start of her career even if she did receive a further northern hemisphere weight allowance.  She was beaten by a rival who has improved almost beyond recognition in a short space of time, and Welwitschia looks more than likely to pick up a decent race or two.

Flirtation stayed on well over a distance which was probably short of her ideal and finished only a neck behind Welwitschia in third.  Fisani was running on stoutly to finish fourth, 5.5 lengths behind the winner and well ahead of fifth placed Alderry.  Headstrong faded late to finish sixth, leaving the De Kock stable with the fairly unusual distinction of saddling the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth in a Gr 1 contest.  KZN visitor Jo Piper was supported at big odds, but trailed in last and was reported by jockey Alec Forbes to have taken no interest in proceedings.

Dancewiththedevil more than vindicated her owner/trainer/breeder St John Gray’s pre-race remarks that we should not be taken in by the notion that his filly’s win in the Horse Chestnut was something of a fluke caused by the soggy going.  “I’d be very happy to run her in firm going,” he noted both before and after the Empress Club, adding that “she’s got the most amazing stride, I think she is looking for 2000m.”  She may get her chance soon, for Gray remarked that providing she pulled up fine from this race Dancewiththedevil will have a go at the R2, Gr 1 President’s Champion Challenge over 2000m on April 30^th.

Dancewiththedevil  has yet to race beyond 1600m and she would be going into uncharted waters when and if she tries her hand at 2000m, but the way she can switch off in a race and then swoop to conquer suggests there is a decent chance she will stay more than a mile.  She may as well strike while the iron is hot, for she was racing off a merit rating of 80 as recently as the end of January and won Tuesday’s race off a mark of 111.  She has simply blossomed, and one imagine that the four-year-old could be in line for an overseas career in time.  De Kock may have had to sit back and watch his quintet of runners follow her home a long way adrift, but there must be a chance that he will find Dancewiththedevil in his care one day, having previously been entrusted with another St John Gray inmate’s Dubai career in the form of Biarritz.

Dancewiththedevil is by a long way the best horse sired by the Zafonic stallion Modus Vivendi, whose two wins from only four career appearances in France came over 1200m and 1800m.  She has patently inherited much more stamina than was ever shown by her dam, the Caesour mare Emperor’s Dance, whose four career victories were all recorded over 1000m.  Dancewiththedevil has won six of her ten appearances to date, for stakes of R1 557 925.

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Empress Club S. (SAf-G1) (4/12)