The right race. The right jockey. The right time. That’s how Justin Snaith summed up the victory of the lightly raced 4yo Call To Unite, who was given a professional ride by course debutante Rachel Venniker to win the R200 000 Listed Settlers Trophy on the sun-drenched ‘Braai, Bak and Brew’ raceday at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on Saturday.
Course debutante Rachel Venniker wins the Listed Settlers Trophy on Call To Unite (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
While a large part of the rest of South Africa laboured under the brunt of a fierce cold front, it was the Cape’s turn to shine and celebrate the arrival of Spring and South Africa’s lone female professional jockey, who celebrated her first day at the scenic country course with a third, two seconds and then a feature first.
Tracking Sean Veale on recent World pool Gold Cup third-placer Ponte Pietra all the way around, Miss Venniker could have been forgiven for believing that feature winners come easy in the Cape winelands as she took over on Call To Unite after the Kannemeyer galloper hit a brick-wall. Extending smartly, the lukewarm 6-1 tote favourite went on really well to beat stablemate and fellow Nic Jonsson galloper Rapidash (11-2), who found the 7,5kg premium tough, and was beaten 2 lengths in a very decent time of 119,75 secs for the 2000m.
Brett Crawford’s Allez Morris (9-2) was a neck away in third.
The pacemaker Ponte Pietra, who Dean Kannemeyer warned was not 100%, fell right away to a 23 length last.
Trainer Justin Snaith, in uncharacteristically subdued fashion, cautioned about getting ‘over excited’ over Call To Unite’s second consecutive win.
“He has a few issues and he is not an easy horse to train. He is a beautiful looker who comes well at this time of year and then trains off. Rachel handled him beautifully. She really is a huge asset at the weights. We found the right race at the right time, with the right jockey. It will be hard to replicate what happened today, but we will do our best and concentrate on the staying features,” added the champion when also thanking his Futura Park team for their hard work.
Bred by Drakenstein Stud, Call To Unite is a 4yo gelded son of Vercingetorix (Silvano) out of the five-time winning Elusive Fort mare and Peter de Beyer home-bred, Siren’s Call. The former Sean Tarry-trained galloper came within a heartbeat of winning the 2015 Wilgerbosdrift Triple Tiara – shaded in the final leg by the talented Pine Princess.
A R900 000 National Yearling Sale purchase, Call To Unite is unbeaten in two jumps as a 4yo and took his overall tally to R350 888 with 3 wins and 4 places from 9 starts.
In champion style, Rachel Venikker followed up her feature victory with a well-judged ride to win the very next race on Ozark for the Paul Reeves Team.
