Darryl Hodgson has been fined R10 000 for his part in the Magic Feet wrong horse fiasco at Kenilworth early in November but owner Hassen Adams is adamant that his private trainer has been made a scapegoat and he intends to “fight it all the way.”
He said: “I agree that Darryl should have been fined, but only R1000, the normal for when a trainer brings the wrong horse. The National Horseracing Authority has a system of checks and balances which should have resulted in its staff identifying that this was not Magic Feet before she ran. “The NHA’s [subsequently sacked] Horse Identifier did not scan the filly properly and she then wrote the markings on the passport to make them match the horse.
To fine Darryl R10 000 for the NHA’s mistake is ridiculous and I’m going to appeal against it. If I have to, I will take this to the highest court in the land – and, if I lose there, I will get out of racing.” Adams was speaking at the Cape Town course on Sunday after his Smiling Mistress produced a renewed late effort under an inspired Glen Hatt to snatch the opening maiden from the Karl Neisius-ridden Dinesen. But that was the last race Neisius lost for the next two and a half hours.
The first few weeks of the season might have been painful and frustrating for Neisius, with one injury following another. Indeed not too many men of 56 would have been able to put them behind him like he did – let alone having a half-ton horse stand on your chest – and he proceeded to thrill his many supporters by serving up three superb exhibitions of timing, leaving each one later than the last.
Corredor in the Graduation Plate was the first and now Glen Puller (“my brother Garth sent him to me and he really rates him”) is eyeing the Jet Master Stakes a fortnight on Saturday. Fred Crabbia’s Happy Lion was then delivered 20 metres out and, like a conjuror saving his best trick until last, Neisius proceeded to get up on the line on the Eric Sands-trained 33-1 shot Stargazer Pink.
Richard Fourie, who was down to ride Happy Lion, was laid low by ‘flu and forced to cry off his rides. “It’s not too bad,” said Justin Snaith with more than half an eye on Saturday’s big meeting, and he also struck with top weight Unencumbered in the Chattels Handicap. The Jooste 9-2 chance was particularly well handled by Jason Smitsdorff.
The handicappers come in for plenty of stick but they were entitled to take a bow on Sunday with photo finishes in all four handicaps and none closer than the Avontuur Estate in which Sean Cormack set out to make all on the Mike Stewart-trained Surruptitious and held on by a millimetre and the same.
He said: “I thought I’d made the winning move but in the last 100m the horse was starting to run on empty and close home he really thrust his head down.” Cormack followed up on Coconut Man in the last to complete a double for the Adams-Hodgson combination while Pater-familias showed that he is finally beginning to justify the high hopes that Mike Bass has so long held for him by winning for the second time inside three weeks.
www.goldcircle.co.za (Michael Clower)
