Horse Racing Reviews

The eagerly awaited rematch between Igugu and Hollywoodboulevard in the Gauteng Fillies Guineas turned into a one-horse parade as Igugu comprehensively wreaked her revenge on her fellow Australian import and ran out the most emphatic of winners. The two had famously met in the Ready To Run Cup over 1400m in early November, where Hollywoodboulevard sprang a 25/1 upset by capsizing 7/20 favourite Igugu, but nearly four months later it was a wholly different story.

The road has been a bumpy one for Earl Of Surrey since he won the Gr 1 Golden Horse Casino Sprint in May 2009, a race which proved to be his last for well over a year, but he proved conclusively that he can still perform at a high level by winning the Hawaii Stakes over 1400m, where his late dash saved the day for the 7yo.

Magico has always looked to be a sprinter of very real promise and the three-year-old recorded his biggest success to date when he won the Tommy Hotspur Handicap over the straight 1000m course at Turffontein last Tuesday night. In the process he credited his trainer Paul Peter with his first success considerably less than a year after he took out his licence, and also gave sire Dupont his first stakes winner.

Hollywoodboulevard has struck up a highly profitable relationship with jockey Willie Figueroa and the combination is now undefeated from four joint efforts after Hollywoodboulevard justified favouritism in the Three Troikas Stakes over 1450m on the Turffontein inner course on Saturday. The veteran rider fondly known as “Figgy” first partnered Hollywoodboulevard when she capsized red-hot favourite Igugu to win the valuable Ready To Run Cup in November and the combination has been in irrepressible form since.

Link Man took to a step up in trip like the proverbial duck to water when he ran out a very comfortable winner of the Tony Ruffel Stakes for three-year-olds over 1450m on the Turffontein inner course on Saturday. Link Man had failed narrowly twice in sprints against older rivals this season and was posting his first success since winning the Gr 1 Gold Medallion at Scottsville in May.

“At one stage I thought she was limited to 1000m,” confessed Mike Bass after Covenant had coped splendidly with a step up in distance and won the Klawervlei Majorca Stakes over 1600m at Kenilworth on Saturday. Therein lies a tale. You never stop learning with horses, even when you’re one of the best trainers ever to ply the trade. This may come as something of a surprise to those who think holding a trainer’s licence somehow should endow one with psychic powers, but it is no surprise at all to those who understand that a horse is not just a number.

The Investec Cape Derby always looked potentially ripe for an unexpected result. The only three horses in the 14 runner field to have raced over the Derby distance of 2000m were amongst the four lowest rated in the line-up, none of them had managed a win at the distance, and only one of them had placed when trying the trip. That left an awful lot of gaps in the picture which only the race could fill and it was Top Seller who filled them when he grabbed a narrow success at Tote odds of around 40/1.