The smart Victory Moon filly Luna De Victoria wins the Scottsville feature despite running sideways
Trainer Brett Crawford and jockey Glen Hatt secured some late Champions Season consolation glory when Alfie Duncan’s wayward but talented Victory Moon filly Luna De Victoria won the R150 000 Listed Off To Stud Handicap run over a mile at Scottsville on Sunday.
The daughter of Victory Moon is a half-sister to Joey Ramsden’s champion 2yo Act Of War (by Dynasty) and is bound to have plenty of options as she heads off to stud with some deserved black-type to her credit.
All of her four career wins have been at a mile. She has a mind of her own and kept the seasoned veteran Hatt on his toes.
Only eight runners lined up with Alec Laird’s Orator’s Daughter starting a weak second favourite at 7 to 2 after drifting from 16 to 10. Luna De Victoria was backed to start favourite at 33 to 10.
Sean Cormack took Diva’s Daughter out to lead Extra Zero and Lady Tatty.
The grey Orator’s Daughter was marginally slow out of the machine and was lagging along in last.
At about the 1000m marker, Marcus took her round her field as the pace was quite pedestrian.
She was the first horse beaten into the home run in what was a rather bizarre and unforgettable race for her.
Glen Hatt would like the owner to jump on Luna De Victoria some time!
Hatt had been conserving Luna De Vctoria on the wide outside and at the 300m he let her loose.
For reasons known only to her, Luna De Victoria lugged right across her field taking Extra Zero and Lady Tatty with her in the process.
Despite her sidewards movement, she was also going forward better than anything and she charged away to beat the fast-finishing Hjacked by 2,75 lengths in a time of 100,91 secs.
Diva’s Daughter stayed on for third, with the unlucky (she had no chance with the winner in reality though) Lady Tatty a further 0,25 lengths away in fourth.
Orator’s Daughter ran stone last. It is not too often that two Jooste owned horses run last in consecutive feature races on any given day.
Jockey Glen Hatt said that it was a deserved win for a ‘tricky customer’.
“She sure has guts. Her owner Alf Duncan is always giving me a hard time about her. I’d like to see him ride her sometime. The way she won today, she may have one more in the tank,” he said.
Brett Crawford congratulated the owner and said that he would be pleased as he was looking for a bit of black type. He said that he thought Luna De Victoria was on her way to stud now.
Luna De Victoria was bred by well known Cape auctioneer Alf Duncan. These silks originally belonged to his father and have been worn by some some really good horses. Cookie Amos’ Free Agent is one that springs to mind.
Luna De Victoria is a 4yo daughter of the deceased Victory Moon and is out of the four-time winning Cordoba mare, Si Senorita, who raced in the same silks.
She has now won 4 races with 6 places from 17 starts and R298 450 in stakes.
