Piere Strydom made it a third winner on the postponed Betway Victory Moon Stakes feature programme at Turffontein on Monday when he steered Fabian Habib’s Ice Star to her maiden stakes success in the R250 000 Betway Listed National Colour Stakes.
Ice Star (Piere Strydom) storms home for her peak win ahead of Elegant Ice under Chase Maujean (Pic – JC Photos)
Previously run as the Gardenia Stakes, and now honouring a speed champion of the turf, the 1000m feature was a formality for the accomplished veteran as he tracked pacesetters Mist In Scotland and Elegant Ice early, before unleashing Ice Star inside the 300m.
In what was a deceptively easy victory, Ice Star (10-1) ran on powerfully in a time of 58,80 secs to hold off the always prominent Elegant Ice (7-2) by a quarter length.
The favourite Almond Sea (2-1) did not enjoy the best of starts and she battled to find daylight, before dashing through late for third, a further length away. She came in off a rest of 17 weeks and should come on lengths with the run under the belt.
Sean Tarry’s Troppo Veloce (8-1) rounded off the R 1 237 quartet, a further 1,50 lengths back.
Piere Strydom observed that the winner is a ‘lovely big filly with plenty of scope for improvement’.
“I thought this would be tough at the weights and looking at the field. But things panned out well. They went a good clip and I was able to track them and then move through at the end,” added Striker.
Trainer Fabian Habib was full of praise for the evergreen Striker and said that the winner ‘is packed with heart’.
“Piere Strydom has always been my role model. He’s a champion jockey. Well done to all my owners and my sponsors, GG Gaming,” enthused Habib.
Now a winner of 5 races with 9 places from 19 starts for stakes of R575 125, the 4yo Ice Star was a R90 000 Cape Yearling Sale graduate.
She is raced by Tri-Deal Sixteen CC (Nom: Mr Z L Nassif), Messrs M G Bothma, Andre Fouche, G, K & M M Nassif, G J Nassif & J Nassif.
Ice Star was bred by Lammerskraal and is by William Longsword (Captain Al) out of the three-time winning Western Winter daughter, Izora, who scored from 1200m to a mile and was stakes placed. She hails from the top family of Icy Trail and Russet Air.
