Valiant Effort. Sky Marshal wins the Kimberley 1400 shortly before tragedy strikes (JC Photos)
Tragedy struck a stride after the finish of the R100 000 Kimberley 1400 at Flamingo Park on Monday when the winner Sky Marshal broke down after a gallant surge to catch and beat the free running Sudden Surprise in the final stages.
The Jaap Visser trained Sky Marshal had blossomed in Kimberley after a brilliant start to his turf career with Mike De Kock way back in 2010.
A promising winning debut effort had fizzled into a troubled career and he had gone right off the boil.
But Sky Marshal was on the comeback trail and was registering his hat trick of wins in the Northern Cape when tragedy struck on Monday.
Code Red led early from Sugar And Shake with Here I Am in the firing line.
Eye Of The World was miles last in the early stages.
Sudden Surprise hit the front at the 300m as Sky Marshal cut his way up the centre of the track.
Sent out a 7 to 2 favourite despite not looking too well in at the weights, Sky Marshal was produced at the 200m marker by Nooresh Juglall and he powered past a luckless Sudden Surprise to win by a quarter length in a time of 85,76 secs.
Here I Am stayed on for third ahead of Code Red, who was sweating up badly in the preliminaries.
A shocked Jockey Nooresh Juglall was visibly emotional in the post race interview and said that he ‘did not know what to say’, but paid tribute to a valiant effort from the 6yo.
The Visser assistant trainer Joanne Steyn was tearful as she apologised to owner Alesh Naidoo.
It was a bitter sweet race for the Visser yard. One of their other three runners, Zulu King, was tailed off and pulled out of the race, also appearing to have broken down.
Sky Marshal had won 5 of his 23 starts for 6 places and R297 200.
The Nutfield Stud bred son of Jet Master was out of the twice winning Al Mufti mare, Gia’s Secret.
He was a R600 000 National Yearling Sale graduate.
A very sad end to the story of a soldier called Sky Marshal.
