Brett Crawford – high hopes for a RTR double
The Dynasty filly Alexis carries the major hopes of a fairer sex hometown victory in Saturday’s R2 million Lanzerac Ready To Run Stakes. A win will give her trainer Brett Crawford the double after Captain America won the inaugural running last year and it will also prove a major boost for her breeders, Connemara Stud.
Alexis, a R200 000 Cape Ready To Run purchase, has won two of her first three starts in convincing style and the winning plan started falling sweetly into place when part-owner Delma Sherrell popped the balloon at the Lanzerac barrier draw ceremony last Thursday to reveal that her filly would jump from gate 2.
Delma, who is also a part-owner of Captain America, drew 3 last year for the son of Captain Al.
Captain America wins it last year
Alexis faces a major test from some highly vaunted visitors, that include Sean Tarry’s undefeated Zambezi River, Geoff Woodruff’s The Captain’s Tune and Tyrone Zackey-trained Pennington Sands.
Crawford has started stepping out his powerful string as the Summer Of Champions catches alight and he will no doubt be s expecting a big day on Saturday.
Besides Alexis, he also had the reserve runners Night In Seattle and Valerin, who could not make the top sixteen and have been scratched.
The Phillipi stable is represented by the power coupling of Captain America and Gr1 Champions Cup winner Futura in the Gr2 Green Point Stakes, who both make their seasonal debut as 4yo’s.
It is also a great honour for a relatively small breeding operation to have a representative in the big league and Lindi and Paul Garlicki of Connemara Stud will be shouting Alexis home.
The Garlickis first got involved with breeding back in 1988, and from a small number of foals (they average between four and five foals annually), they have bred a number of top-class performers.
One of their first classy performers was Hard Warrior, a G2 placed winner of six, while another feather in their cap was the smart filly Stunning Kitten – one of the best offspring sired by Springing Leopard. Stunning Kitten was a five time winner, who won the Tony Ruffel Handicap.
