With respect, you can’t keep a good ‘old’ man down!
After his hat-trick in the famous white,red and black Wernars silks at Turffontein on Saturday, multiple champion Piere Strydom showed again that age is just a number, and that even in testing weather and track conditions that pushed the fear factor envelope, he can match it on any day with the new generation.
Fact is, he has few equals at an age where many of us lose a few lengths just when getting out of bed in the morning.
Compared to the sundrenched spring flower scenery of Hollywoodbets Durbanville, Turffontein, or Golden Lions country as it’s now known, was relative doom and gloom on Saturday.
But full marks to the jockeys, young and old, who persevered after they had raised some valid concerns about horses pecking in some patches following the running of the third race.
The panel inspect the track after the third race at Turffontein on Saturday (Pic – JC Photos)
A panel was duly constituted and it was decided that the inside running rail would be altered to zero, which would allow the riders to avoid the areas of concern at the 1200m and 800m. The track condition was changed from ‘good’, to ‘good to soft’ and racing went ahead.
Unfortunately for Smanga Khumalo, his day was over early on after being dislodged from Inspector James as the start of the third race was effected. The Wernars’ What A Winter gelding took an awkward stride and stumbled leaving the stalls.
‘Bling’ was attended to by course paramedics and transported to the medical centre for further observation, and thereafter to hospital.
His agent Monty Mariemuthoo told the Sporting Post on Sunday morning that Smanga was admitted to hospital, and he undertook to provide us with an update in the course of the day.
The class act Barbaresco capped the Piere Strydom-Wernars hat-trick (Pic -JC Photos)
But it will be of some compensation to the hospitalized rider that the gloomy day belonged to his team of Laurence Wernars, Johan Janse van Vuuren and the irrepressible Striker Strydom.
In the sixth, Striker had been booked to ride the Rafeef filly Chasing Happiness and delivered the goods on the lightly raced 4yo.
In the seventh, the veteran substituted for Khumalo on the What A Winter mare Nettleton, and got his instructions from Andrew Fortune, who does most of the work at the Janse van Vuuren yard.
Again, it was an unflustered professional ride to bag the Wernars home-bred’s fifth career victory.
The third leg of the hat-trick came aboard the classy grey Barbaresco. Known as an extremely strong horse, Barbaresco came racing fresh and above himself after a near two month break.
After some magical parade-ring advice from Andrew Fortune, Striker got the job done and booted Barbaresco home with a minimum of fuss.
Contacted by the Sporting Post early on Saturday morning, a delighted Laurence Wernars said that Strydom’s performance ‘just shows that he is in a different league’.
“Striker is international level and he showed the experience again. He gets on three different horses that he has never sat on ever, and goes and wins on all three, including two pick-up rides. And he won without using his crop. That’s unbelievable to say the least,” added the leading owner who is enjoying a great start to the season with some big horses in the wings.
Mike Destombes, Andrew Fortune, Laurence Wernars and Anthony Joannides lead Piere Strydom and Nettleton in (Pic – JC Photos)
Piere Strydom has 11 winners to his name this season so far at a win strike-rate of 28,12%. His place strike-rate is 38,46%.
It was certainly an eventful day and it didn’t start particularly happily for the Janse van Vuuren team when the super-quick Querari grey Master Casper was scratched due to elevated TCO2 levels.
At the start of the second race, Mike de Kock’s well fancied Irish-bred Kingman debutante Wearingofthegreen was injured during the loading process and withdrawn.
Given her 18-10 odds, the runners were taken out of the stalls and the public given time to restructure their bets. It turned out to be tough result with promising apprentice Trent Mayhew riding a well-judged race to get Robbie Sage’s Stroopsoet (14-1) home for the Hollywood Syndicate.
With Sunday’s Hollywoodbets Greyville racemeeting postponed to Wednesday, and no local slot on Monday, the Vaal on Tuesday is our next SA racemeeting. The off-time of the first is 12h30.
