With stakeholders still reeling from the shock move by the Stipendiary Stewards to withdraw all of the Tony Peter runners from the third race onwards on the Turffontein big day, the R300 000 Betway Summer Cup Consolation produced a thrilling three-corned finish, with Diego De Gouveia extracting a great effort from the trojan mare, Perfect Witness.
Perfect Witness under jockey Diego De Gouveia takes it by a neck to beat Star Coin (Kaidan Brewer) Crimson King (Kabelo Matsunyane) and Pyromaniac (Richard Fourie) in a thriller (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
In a double whammy for punters, the withdrawal of the original Tony Peter favourite Street Art saw Pyromaniac start tote favourite, and the Tarry chestnut duly did the dirty by running fourth and consigning thousands of Bipot and PA tickets to the waste dump.
While this was the official consolation race, the only horse eliminated from the big race was River River Romeo, who did the donkey work in a field reduced to 8 runners.
In the run for home the pacemaker came under pressure as Pyromaniac unwound down the outside.
In the final 50m any one of three could win it, but it was the Candice Dawson-trained Perfect Witness (9-2) who found more to hold off the always prominent Star Coin (25-2) by a neck in a time of 124,46 secs.
Victory celebrations for Perfect Witness and the connections (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The 8-1 Crimson King was the villain of the peace as he held Pyromaniac (11-10) out of third by the proverbial nose.
Enjoy the replay:
Jockey Diego De Gouveia labelled the winner a ‘gutsy mare’.
“She took a little longer than usual to get going, but she is getting better with age,” he added of the mare who had registered a hat-trick of victories in the process.
A R180 000 National Yearling Sale purchase, Perfect Witness took her tally to 7 wins with 8 places from 26 starts for stakes of R896 375.
Raced by Ralphs Racing (Pty) Ltd, the nominee of which is Miss Katherine Ralphs, the winner was bred by James Armitage and is by the Distorted Humor stallion Flower Alley out of the Albarahin mare, Fakazi, a three-time winner.
