Tiger Eyes! Tiger Territory wins the Lightning Stakes (JC Photos)
Jockey Sherman Brown and trainer Leon Erasmus grabbed the second leg of an impressive feature race double when Tiger Territory scored a smart win in the R125 000 Lightning Stakes run over the Vaal sand 1000m on Thursday.
Erasmus and Brown are always a dangerous combination, particularly with their value runners and their 40 to 1 feature double was a rather generous one.
The field of eleven runners got away on terms with the pacy Tiger Territory leading from Benbow and Velvet Verona.
Tiger Territory kicked clear and besides hanging in over the last 400m and making an abnormal respiratory noise, he won by 3,75 lengths in a time of 58,06 secs.
It was a superb day for Erasmus.
Besides a hat trick of winners, he also saddled the second and fourth placed runners in this non black type feature.
Erasmus’ Nice Stride kicked on like a trojan under a back breaking 62kgs, and the 4yo should not be too long in winning again.
Cape Winter, Be Assured and the consistent Velvet Verona were all not striding out and should be worthy of another chance.
The Highlands bred Tiger Territory is by Trippi out of the unraced Model Man mare, Frangrant Filly. He cost R1,1 million on the National Two Year Old Sale.
Tiger Territory has now won 4 of his 14 starts with 5 places and R345 100 in stakes.
So while Ivan Snyman’s gelding is way off a decent ROI mark, he may yet improve and could be an Emerald Cup prospect in time to come.
