Cape Racing’s recently installed plastic running rails could have saved serious injury, and even lives at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on Saturday when a runner crashed through on the turn.
Both horse and rider thankfully emerged unscathed.
At the penultimate racemeeting of the current season at the Country Course before the action ups the ante with a return to Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday 2 November, ten races were held under sunny skies.
The drama happened in the fifth race, the Paarl Diamant Open Maiden over a mile.
Joshwin Solomons was deputizing for the indisposed Anthony Andrews, and was rounding the turn just back of midfield on American Matador, a colt having his fifth start and his third at Hollywoodbets Durbanville.
Watch the replay here – it appears that a horse ahead of American Matador may have inconvenienced him and caused him to take fright:
Jonathan Snaith told the Sporting Post that both Joshwyn Solomons and American Matador had emerged unscathed from the nasty incident.
Cape Racing Executive Justin Vermaak, who labelled the incident ‘a horror’, said that the rails had been installed at the start of the current season and that they were thankful that both horse and rider were fine and that the new equipment had already proven their safety value.
Sean Veale times it right to get Gnarly up to register the Marshall double, with Louis Mxothwa chasing on Afrique (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Sporting Post-sponsored rider Sean Veale broke the ice and banged home a 150-1 double for Vaughan Marshall to open the Pick 6 on the afternoon.
Dumbledore (5-1) enjoyed an enthusiastic ride to hold off Bjorn Ironside (33-10) down the inside to win the fourth, while Gnarly popped up at 25-1 for the One World Syndicate to win the fifth.
The fifth race proved a knockout for favourite backers, with the 5-10 Zeitz battling to find a position from his awkward draw, and then staying on too late for third.
Ossie Noach rounded off the Marshall treble when Captain’s Destiny won the final race after playing up at the start.
Ridgemont rider Richard Fourie followed up on his four Fairview winners on Friday, with a three-timer, that included a sensational outside rails ride in the sixth on Brett Crawford’s Join The Dots who flew up out of camera sight initially to pip Groovejet, who looked a winner to those of us watching on television.
- The final Hollywoodbets Durbanville meeting of 2024 is on Tuesday – first off at 12h50.
