Doing It For Dan (Anthony Delpech) turns on the power to win the Hampton (Pic: JC Photos)
Trainer Louis Goosen dominated the finish of the R150 000 Listed Hampton Handicap at the Vaal on Saturday, with the slow starting Doing It For Dan powering home late under Anthony Delpech to capitalise on a frenetic pace and beat his star stablemate, Trip Tease.
Goosen saddled 5 of the ten runners in the 1000m sand speed contest and there was some twisted irony in the reality that the purpose and enthusiasm of Andrew Fortune sending Varbration to chase the pace, and thus effectively force his fancied stablemate Trip Tease to carry every gram of his welterweight, created the gap for the talented Doing It For Dan to cut them all down with a late effort from some lengths off.
After Varbration had paced it with the 14-10 Trip Tease, Doing It For Dan cut his way between runners under super sub Anthony Delpech and swept forward to win by 2,10 lengths in a time of 57,24 secs.
The never-say-die Trip Tease, with all of his 63,5kgs, stayed on doggedly for second, with Greasepaint in third.
The Anthony Maroun-owned Doing It For Dan will now be aimed at the Golden Loom Handicap, while the magnificent Trip Tease is scheduled to join Harold Crawford in Cape Town shortly – with his main target the Cape Flying Championship.
One Man’s Dream needed the run after a break and is likely to have the Joburg Merchants as his major short-term target.
Goosen was pleased with Trip Tease’s effort and felt that, given the experience and lessons learnt from his Cape raid last term, his charge would be a major factor this time round.
He was not pleased with the programming options though:
“I don’t understand the thinking. Why have a Pinnacle prep two weeks before the big race? There is nothing else in between. I may have to utilise grass gallops as one doesn’t want to have a major Gr1 goal as a second run after a rest. And after his inexperience cost him last year, when he took off with Deon Sampson, we will do things slightly differently this time.”
Goosen has been allocated 5 boxes for his Cape squad.
The Highlands bred Doing It For Dan is a superbly consistent 4yo gelded son of Windrush out of the unraced Mt Livermore, Wrapped In Clover.
He has won 7 races with 10 places from 19 starts and stakes of R608 875.
He was another astute purchase by trainer Louis Goosen for just R100 000 on the 2013 Emperors Palace National Two Year Old Sale.
Ed Note – The Goosen-trained debut winner Haddington was fancied to go close in the Sophomore 1000, but his run is best ignored. The race was won in runaway style by Kingoftheworld.
“Haddington slipped on leaving the gates and pulled his front right shoe off. After that he ran green and failed to get into it. He is a big horse and I would have liked to have targetted the Graham Beck Stakes with him. But there are only prep races on the Turffontein inner track – so I may have to rethink his plans. He is a lovely horse,” said Louis.
