A rampant Christophe Soumillon, enjoying a busman’s holiday in the fairest Cape, made it three winners from three rides when he produced the Lancaster Bomber filly Rascova with an impressive turn of foot to win the R500 000 City Of Cape Town Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes at a buzzing Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday.
The second leg of the Summer Juvenile Series, with a substantially Increased stake from R175 000 in 2022 up to R500 000 for this renewal, the traditional Met day 2yo feature attracted a capacity field and produced a finish to match.
Christophe again! Rascova charges clear to give the French champ a treble on the day (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Unfancied in the betting, the Cheveley Stud-bred Rascova (33-1) enjoyed the honour of becoming her sire Lancaster Bomber’s first stakes winner – she was also his first winner on cracking her maiden on debut in December – when she came out of the pack to run the leaders down and hold off a late challenge from Distant Winter (16-1) by 1,25 lengths in a time of 66,07 secs.
The winner’s more fancied stablemate Golden Tatjana (8-1) was a half length back in third to make it a top three clean sweep for the fairer sex.
A son of War Front, the ill-fated Gr1 winning Lancaster Bomber joined the Drakenstein stallion roster after spending one season at the National Stud in Newmarket, and with his first crop racing, he has been touted as serious player for freshman stallion honours.
For French champion Soumillon, it was a day to remember with an earlier Gr1 winner in the bag, and he joked that he may consider applying for a visa!
The World Sports Betting-sponsored Glen Kotzen saddled four runners in the feature and said that he was ‘collecting the Lancaster Bombers’
A R260 000 Cape Yearling Sale graduate, the winner is raced by Sandy and Eugene Arundel, who have enjoyed a welcome change in fortunes, celebrating their second feature success in a flying start to 2023 after Miss Cool won the Gr3 Three Troikas Stakes at Turffontein on 2 January.
Rascova has won 2 of her 3 starts for stakes of R415 625.
We now head into the third leg of the Summer Juvenile Series – that is the Cape Racing Gr3 Cape of Good Hope Nursery on Cape Derby Day, 25 February 2023.
