Replacement rider Grant van Niekerk did everything perfectly for 1975m of the 2000m of the R500 000 Riding High Together Gr2 Gold Bracelet on Cape raider Red Palace at Hollywoodbets Greyville on World Pool Gold Cup day.
Thankfully things out panned out well for the talented rider.
Red Palace (Grant van Niekerk) hangs on to beat the courageous Saartjie under Corne Orffer (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
After replacing his carded colleague Aldo Domeyer, Van Niekerk had the well backed Candice Bass-Robinson trained Red Palace stalking the leader Lady Of Power two lengths off the gallop.
Into the home run, Rascova moved past the leader and made a dash for glory, with Van Niekerk making his run down the middle.
With her beautiful stride, Red Palace sailed past Rascova and was going away – that’s until Van Niekerk erred, dropping his hands just metres from the line.
Despite the mistake, Red Palace (5-2) hung on by a diminishing neck to beat the courageous Saartjie (7-1), who had made up a load of lengths from way back off a bad draw, in a time of 122,74 secs.
Rascova (8-1) ran a really gutsy race after being in the mix for much of the trip, and hung on for third, ahead of None Other (25-1).
An Andrews family home-bred, the good-looking winner is a daughter of Potala Palace (Singspiel) out of the four-time winning Jay Peg mare, In Limine.
Red Palace is a winner of 4 races with 2 places from 13 starts for stakes of R1 020 138. She now looks a nice broodmare prospect after this maiden Gr2 success.
Terry Fripp looked after the Bass-Robinson horses in KZN. The Milnerton yard celebrated fair time of it, with a Gr1 victory, and this Gr2 today, from limited SA Champions Season firepower.
