Turffontein hosts the only stakes feature on South African soil this weekend when the Listed Sea Cottage Stakes headlines the programme today.
The legendary champion and newsmaker Sea Cottage ended his career with 20 wins from 24 starts and was widely regarded as the greatest horse to ever grace the South African turf until Horse Chestnut arrived.
Sea Cottage – a legend of the turf
But that’s a debate for another day and while he only appeared once on the Highveld, in his final race, which he won by over 5 lengths in something of an exhibition gallop at Germiston’s Gosforth Park, he will be remembered as a great.
Saturday’s feature gives the aspirant Derby 3yo’s a chance to go through their paces over 1800m.
It is rare to see two popular champions in Piere Strydom and Mike de Kock teaming up, but they make a formidable combination when they do and recently gelded Al Muthana was not disgraced when finishing fourth in the Gr2 WSB Dingaans last time.
Piere Strydom rides Al Muthana (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The Australian-bred son of Deep Field should be at home over the 200m on Saturday and with Strydom in the saddle should take a power of beating.
An obvious danger is Johan Janse van Vuuren’s Second Base, who reeled off a hat-trick of wins recently and has won 4 of 6 starts. The son of Gimmethegreenlight faces his toughest test to date, but he clearly has plenty of ability and should be up to the task at hand.
Sean Tarry and Lyle Hewitson are always a duo to take into account in the feature environment and they team up with Querari colt Shah Akbar, who won a good race using frontrunning tactics over this distance, three weeks ago.
The race has a special place in young Denis Schwarz’ heart.
It was here as an apprentice in 2019 that he stormed home on Chijmes to register his first career feature success. He partners Foreign Field for Paul Matchett today.
