Super sire Var’s good son Isca smashed the Scottsville 1000m course and class record in near perfect conditions on Sunday.
Keagan De Melo gets Isca up late to collar Muscatt
The Gavin van Zyl trained grey flyer beat the previous course record holder Muscatt by 0,15 lengths to set the new benchmark of 55,68 secs.
With the blinkers removed after they had appeared to compound his naughtiness in the starting stalls, the 4yo tracked his field before finding a sustained finish under Keagan De Melo to register his third win from 17 starts.
Bred and raced by the Witbank-based Werner and Nelmare Ackerman, Isca is out of the unraced Brazillian-bred Impression mare, Jolie Bele. She was purchased in a package by Corne Spies and Marlon Aronstam but was injured on the flight from Brazil and never raced.
Gavin van Zyl
Isca’s half-brother by Spectrum won three races and with the grey speedster’s latest signs of promise, the Ackermans may yet rue the fact that they gave the mare away.
The astute Van Zyl says he has plans for Isca.
“He just doesn’t enjoy Joburg, but I’d like to aim him at the Computaform Sprint and raid from Summerveld. I have always believed that one needs a horse to run a sub 56 secs to have a shout in the Computaform – and now that he has shown us that he can do it, he certainly warrants the chance.”
The top former jockey’s observations are borne out by the times set by three of the past five Computaform Sprint winners:
Carry On Alice (2016) clocked 55,74 secs, Alboran Sea (2015) clocked 55,59 secs and the outstanding What A Winter (2013) clocked 55,67 secs.
