Richard Fourie drives Cat And The Moon up to beat Kumiko (Coastal Photos)
Justin Snaith’s steady take-off to better things to come in 2015 gained further momentum at Fairview on Friday when the SA Champion saddled Cat And The Moon to score her first stakes win in the R150 000 Listed Breeders Guineas.
Snaith has made a cautious start to the year with disappointment more prevalent than the golden winning streak he enjoyed last season and which helped him to unseat Mike De Kock at the top of the local tree.
This term his Gauteng colleague Sean Tarry has streaked ahead and he leads the Cape family operation by some R4,8 million.
Justin Snaith – nice double on the day
But Snaith has turned the corner on the Eastern Cape feature race front and registered his second success in as many Fridays (Charles Lytton won the Listed Ibhayi Stakes last week) when Richard Fourie produced the 4 to 1 Cat And The Moon with a sustained late burst to catch and beat the pacy local Kumiko by 1,25 lengths in a time of 97,12 secs.
The lightly-raced Kumiko ran a good race over the mile and stuck doggedly to her task to stay on for second.
Gavin Van Zyl’s KZN raider Se Agabor was in the Windy City in search of some black-type and was installed favourite after her consistent streak of form on the East Coast.
The daughter of Trippi was always in the firing line but ran out of steam and had to be content with a third place cheque a further 0,75 lengths back.
The Kotzen runner Cathy Specific moved up well late in the race but battled to kick and may need further ground and more experience to show more. She was having only her third run.
Richard Fourie rode a patient race
Cat And The Moon is a R175 000 Cape Premier Yearling Sale Book 1 graduate and has won 3 races with 6 places from 12 starts and R274 275 in stakes.
She gave Richard Fourie and Justin Snaith a nice double after Swedish King has won earlier at 16 to 1.
The Oldlands Stud-bred winner is a daughter of Black Minnaloushe out of the once-winning Indigo Magic mare, Earn A Moon, who is a half-sister to Mike De Kock’s Dubai stakes winner Lucky Find and the well-performed PE stakes performer Pay The Piper. Both won 8 races.
Cat And The Moon’s younger brother Moonrise Sensation (by Var) set a record for Oldlands Stud at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale two months ago when bought by a UK owner for R4 million – making him the Sanne family’s record seller after 40 years in the game.
