Just Gorgeous! Beach Beauty cruises in under Sean Cormack to win the Gr1 Garden Province Stakes
A masterful ride by Sean Cormack was the way trainer Dennis Drier described the brilliant Beach Beauty’s emphatic victory in Saturday’s R750 000 Gr1 Garden Province Stakes at Greyville.
The little daughter of Dynasty has entrenched herself as the darling of the punting public, as she just does not know how to run a bad race. Her victory here from a poor draw took her earnings to over R3 million.
And the big names behind her put the merit of the terrific win into perspective.
These included Glen Kotzen’s brilliant Equus champion Princess Victoria, who stayed on well to run a good fourth, while recent Gr1 Empress Club Stakes winner Thunder Dance finished unplaced. Joey Ramsden’s Majorca Stakes winner Blueridge Mountain also failed to fire.
The race was run at an enthusiastic pace with the Jet Master mare Without Malice making the early running in her new ownership led of the Avontuur silks. Louvre followed with three lengths further away to Earth’s Orbit and Blue Ridge Mountain, with Espumanti just behind those.
Into the home straight Louvre grabbed the lead from Without Malice, but it was shortlived as Beach Beauty was weaving her way through and she flew late.
Beach Beauty went on strongly to win by 1,50 lengths under a saluting Cormack in a time of 98,10 secs.
Interestingly she had landed up winning right down the inside after jumping from a wide draw.
Espumanti stayed on smartly for second 1,50 lengths behind, and Louvre showed great character to run third.
Jockey Sean Cormack said afterwards that Beach Beauty continued to ‘amaze’ him:
“She proved me wrong from the draw as I thought it would be difficult. She is pure brilliance. Her size highlights how realy good she is. The race worked out beautifully and her acceleration when I asked for it was out of the top drawer,” he said.
Trainer Dennis Drier labelled it a ‘masterful ride’ by Cormack:
“She is brilliant and what a pleasure to train for her owners. They have never interfered in any plans or programmes. I must admit that I was always concerned about the draw. But Sean had that under control. We will take it race by race as we have always done, from here,” he said.
Bred by Trevor Armitage, Beach Beauty is by Dynasty out of the three-time winning Capture Him mare, Sun Coast.
Beach Beauty has run 23 times for 12 wins and 8 places.
She took her earnings to R3 074 952.
The brilliant Beach Beauty must rank as something close to public favourite for horse of the year, even though reality dictates that the likes of Variety Club and What A Winter will be considered ahead of her.
