Summerveld trainer Mike Miller is a master when it comes to prepping early 2yo’s and it was hardly a surprise when his charges ran 1-2-3 in the opening juvenile race of the KZN racing season at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday.
The 800 scurry capped the major centre introductions for the youngsters countrywide and was won with a late rattle by Ben Sahd’s Querari filly Siesta Sunset (10-1), who came through late under Mathew Thackeray to cut down her more fancied and very pacy stablemate Holds The Key (15-10) in the Bipot opener.
Miller 1-2-3 as Siesta Sunset (Mathew Thackeray) beats Holds The Key (Tristan Godden) and Atlantic Breeze (Calvin Habib) in the baby opener on Sunday (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The winning jockey said that he had opted to side with the filly after the final work last week. It certainly showed his judgement, as she clocked 46,2 secs to beat her stable companion going away by 1,20 lengths.
The Captain Of All colt Atlantic Breeze (20-1) was a further 1,10 lengths back.
The Waterford Stud-bred winner is out of the well-related Peintre Celebre mare, Tramontina.
Twenty four hours earlier, the first Highveld baby race of the season was also won by a filly.
The Paul Matchett-trained Glastonbury, a daughter of Rafeef bred by Pippa Mickleburgh out of the Gimmethegreenlight mare Gimme London, cost R250 000 at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale.
On 23 November, Cape Racing opened their sparkling juvenile programme with the R250 000 Futurity Plate, run over the 800m straight at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth.
Justin Snaith’s ‘talking’ horse Black Cheetah, a half-brother to the top yard’s classic prospect Great Plains, stamped his authority after running green and being marginally outpaced early on.
Bred by Drakenstein Stud, Black Cheetah is, like Siesta Sunset, also a son of Querari (Oasis Dream) out of the one-time winning Var mare, Mara. He is raced in a partnership of the breeder and Fiona Carmichael’s Westward Bloodstock Ltd.
A R1 million Cape Premier Yearling Sale graduate, he was a horse that trainer Justin Snaith admitted that he had fallen in love with when he arrived at the yard.
