Club Travel! Variety Club is an easy winner of the Gr1 Cape Guineas
Variety Club firmly established himself as the top three year old miler in South Africa with a scintillating victory in the R1 million Gr1 Cape Premier Yearling Sale Guineas at Kenilworth on 17 December. After juggling with his supporters’ emotions and producing some nerve-racking hesitation at the starting stalls, he streaked clear with 350m to run to win the prestigious feature with embarrassing ease.
The Beaumont Stud bred colt will hopefully now be given the freedom of Cape Town, or at the very least Kenilworth, to show off his champion three year old title, so far denied him for reasons only known and understood by those with horseracing mentalities.
Today he won the Guineas. That puts the mouthwatering cherry on top of a sizzling six months which has seen him win the Langerman, the Matchem Stakes and the Selangor Cup too. That’s not bloody bad going at all and the historians and statisticians will soon confirm whether that winning run has been achieved previously.
But who cares about the past? Variety Club is an outstanding athlete who has been brought along and was primed to the minute – even though that minute moved on at his own instigation today. Playing silly buggers, as colts will do, he fooled around and delayed the start. And then time stood still as he was unloaded and Anton Marcus jumped off to check his equipment.
He then went in without hesitation and was out like lightening as he tracked his stablemate The Balladeer for much of the trip. Ramsden’s inclusion of a disposable pacesetter owned by the same owner, at the supplementary entry stage at relatively great cost, was a measure of the technical and tactical genius that showed he is a thinker. It worked to a charm, and tonight the Englishman is the toast of his owners and the racing public.
Var Too Good! Variety Club and Anton Marcus with Derek Brugman.
Var’s first lady, Avontuur General Manager Pippa Mickleburgh, aptly summed up the enormity of the stupendous victory by suggesting that the win would ‘change our lives forever’, and while she may have been understandably consumed by the intoxicating emotional rush of a unique horseracing high, she is actually bang on target.
Ramsden is enjoying a great summer. He has been surfing a wave of feature race success for some weeks now. A true professional, who markets his business with enthusiasm and knows how to train Group 1 winners, he has caught his own flak by the envious bottom-feeders at times and he deserves the success again that a really big horse brings.
Anton Marcus is South African champion jockey purely because he really is the best jockey around. That said, one has the feeling that Variety Club’s Groom could have won on him today.
Var has surely now once and for all shed his label as a speed stallion that produces precocious jets of white lightening. This has been one helluva twelve months for him
Derek Brugman was on hand to receive the winning owner trophy on a day that was looking marginal for the Joostes until Ramsden stepped in. Variety Club’s R425 000 local price tag looked rather cheap as he took his earnings well over R1 million with his entire career still ahead of him.
The three expensive Jooste Australian-breds were disappointing on the afternoon with Dan De Lago refusing to jump, Hollywoodboulevard looking ordinary and running accordingly in the Victress, while Delago Deluxe also made no show in the Diadem Stakes.
There will be plenty of time for the inevitable post-mortems. Mike De Kock showed again that he can travel anywhere after his Silvano colt, Silver Flyer ran a cracker to run second after an arduous trip from Johannesburg this week. The Dingaans winner looked well and ran accordingly to just pip Princess Victoria for the second cheque. Glen Kotzen and his team can hold their heads high after their Princess Victoria ran a cracker to finish third just 4,25 lengths off and just two weeks after capturing the Fillies Guineas. Justin Snaith’s Gimmethegreenlight ran on well enough for fourth place – but is frustratingly too much like his enigmatically talented stablemate, Run For It. All show, some smart talk, but little real action when the chips are down.
Dean Kannemeyer’s trio did not deliver today. Divine Jet’s owner Lady Christine Laidlaw arrived on course in a helicopter on her birthday, but the poor draw did little to help her smart Jet Master colt who finished seventh. Liancourt Rock ran best of the three to finish a promising fifth and just over 6 lengths back. Depardieu was a disappointment, finishing second last and 12 lengths back. One has the feeling though that we have not seen the last of them.
The brilliant Mike Bass-trained colt What A Winter returned to his awesome best with an easy win in the supporting feature, the R300 000 Gr2 WPOTA Diadem Stakes run over 1200m. The experienced Karl Neisius tracked the speedy Captain Harry and then pressed the launch button at the 300m marker. It was no race in a matter of strides and it was most unusual to see Neisius saluting as he eased the smart Daytona bred down as they passed the line. This was a remarkable eighth win from 12 starts for this brilliant son of Western Winter and his relieved trainer said afterwards that he may run him in the l’Ormarins Queen’s Plate, depending on where he draws. He would also go for the Cape Flying Championship.
The Victress. Super Elegant is driven out by Grant Van Niekerk to win the Group 3.
The importance of the role of the smaller owners and trainers is often overlooked in this tough big money game, but there were many cheers for the Milnerton-based trainer Piet Steyn who grabbed a seemingly unlikely win in the third of the afternoon’s three features, the R150 000 Gr3 Victress Stakes run over 1800m. Young jockey Grant Van Niekerk rode a patient race on the 13-1 daughter of Daylami as Croc Valley led from the fancied visitor Beach Beauty.
Bred by Lionel Cohen, she was a R120 000 purchase at the now defunctVintage sale. The filly is a daughter of the seven-time winning Model Man mare, Pacific Gem. This was her biggest career victory and a third win from just ten starts. She has campaigned and been placed in the Champagne Stakes, ran second to Soweto Slew in the Sophomore Sprint, and finished a fair sixth in the Fillies Guineas, some five lengths off Princess Victoria.
The R110 000 Jet Master Stakes run over a mile opened the jackpot and backers of the deep odds-on Tales Of Bravery would have suffered heart failure after the Marshall gelding sauntered into the lead in the final 250m and then hung out badly onto the challenging Jet Into The Wind. Grant Van Niekerk looked briefly flustered on Jet Into The Wind and appeared to let go of his rein at a critical stage. Felix Coetzee was making ground wide out on Emerald Cove and the pair almost nailed the favourite late. The win was an extraordinarily casually confident ride by MJ Byleveld, who notched up his second of the day and is riding with a lot more verve at the present.
The disappointment of this race was the repeated errant behaviour of the formerly well-performed Dan De Lago, who despite unprecedented co-operation by the local Stipendiary Stewards, once again refused to jump. He was having his first run in 532 days and after again costing punters money in cold blood, he now deserves a permanent warning off from racing and being impeccably bred as he is, a career as a stallion down Klawervlei way may be more up to his fancy.
Hot as Spice! Agra makes it 100% for Trippi in South Africa.
Drakenstein Stud’s End Sweep stallion Trippi marked his first South African runner with a winner, when the Highlands bred Agra showed too much toe and ability for her eleven rivals in the Maiden Juvenile scurry over 900m. Starting at prohibitive odds of 11-20, the good looking youngster strode clear to win very well and make it two straight winners for the Justin Snaith- Felix Coetzee combination.
Named after the city of the same name on the banks of the Yamuna River in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, and running in the instantly recognisable silks of Team Valor International and Anant and Vanashree Singh, Agra was a R700 000 purchase and is out of the four-time winning National Assembly mare, The Taj. It is interesting that Snaith has unleashed an obviously very talented sort so early and her short term target is likely to be a popular stable target in the Juvenile Stakes on J&B Met day.
Things went a bit awry for Place Accumulator punters in the first leg third race with the popular exotic paying a minimum dividend of R2-90 when the fancied Frangrant Al battled into fourth place. The classy daughter of Captain Al looked a picture but may have needed the run and carried a welterweight of 63,5kg. The race went to another Captain Al with MJ Byleveld and Captain’s Emblem being rather surprisingly allowed by her six opposing riders to dictate matters out front. She stayed on well to record her fifth win from 14 starts.
The Right Approach.Sam Sellars leads Palos Verdes in after his good win.
The fourth race, a Maiden Plate over a mile was dominated by stallion Right Approach, who sired both the winner and the third placed runner in a tricky carryover Pick 6 opener. The race produced a minor upset with Dean Kannemeyer’s improving chestnut Palos Verdes getting the better of the Marshall gelding Hurricane Charley, while Island Flyer ran a career best third. The latter is trained by Joey Ramsden who also trained the fourth placed Bronco Buster, who lost many lengths at the start and ran on well. Palos Verdes recent Workriders form had obviously not impressed punters but the Fieldspring Racing owned horse made the likes of Green Tractor, Domani, Premium Wood and Shanghai Kid, look decidedly ordinary.
Glen Kotzen didn’t go home empty handed when he brought the curtain down on a wonderful day’s racing courtesy of his beloved ill-fated champion Big City Life’s half brother, Albarakah. Sean Cormack rode a confident race on the gelding, who was having his third start, and won the Maiden Plate over 1200m easier than the winning margin suggests. Owned and bred by Glen’s mom-in-law Judy Wintle, he is by Almushtarak, which decision or formula, after the mating by Casey Tibbs that produced ‘Big’, makes for an interesting thought for another day!
