Justin Snaith’s 2024 World Sports Betting Gr1 Cape Town Met winner Double Superlative was something of a surprise inclusion for many of us in the first entry list for the Hollywoodbets Gr1 Gold Challenge earlier this week.
But his SA champion trainer has confirmed that the lightly raced 5yo entire is very much alive and loving life, and in training at Summerveld.
Double Superlative suffered a tendon injury in Durban in early 2022, after winning the Cape Guineas in 2021 and was off for over 14 months, before a miraculous recovery to return and win the Cape flagship race.
There were reports a few weeks thereafter that he was retiring to stud.
Double Superlative (Danny Muscutt) beats Rascallion (Bernard Fayd’herbe) to win the WSB Cape Town Met (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Jonathan Snaith told the Sporting Post on Tuesday that the handsome son of Twice Over, often said to be something of a ringer for the stable’s retired multiple Durban July winner Do It Again,is doing well and showing enormous enthusiasm for his work.
“There were plans to send him to stud, but no agreement was reached with any suitable base for him, and one has to acknowledge that it is a climate where a number of options are available to breeders in terms of stallions. So a decision was made, based on his excellent health, to keep him in training rather. We felt we’d bring him up to KZN and get the sun on his back and his racing career on track. He really is full of beans and is loving it. The plan is to target the L’Ormarins King’s Plate and the Met again,” he confirmed.
And the decision to enter him in the Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge?
“Justin is looking at the possibilities. He may run there, or even a week later in a Pinnacle Plate at Hollywoodbets Greyville. We have not discounted a possible supplementary entry into the Hollywoodbets Durban July either. He beat See It Again by some 3 lengths in the Met and he’d be better off at the weights in the July with Michael Roberts’ chestnut. If not, he will have the Champions Cup as an option too. Plans remain fluid, and it’s worth noting that as a 5yo he has extremely low mileage, having only run 13 times, for two Grade 1 wins,” he added.
A horse described by South Africa’s leading Gr1 winning jockey Anton Marcus as one of the best he had ridden, Double Superlative was bred by Patricia Devine Investments from Klawervlei sire Twice Over (Observatory) out of the Jet Master five-time winner, Come Fly With Me.
A R375 000 Cape Premier Yearling Sale purchase, Double Superlative has won 3 races with 6 places from 13 starts for stakes of R1 962 800 for owner Nic Jonsson, and is rated 124.
Final supplementary entries for the 2024 Hollywoodbets Durban July close at 11h00 on Tuesday 18 June.
