Wide-margin winners were the order of the day in several of the eight Feature events on a soggy Turffontein track and the Man O’ War Sprint for three-year-olds over 1100m was no exception.
2010 SA Oaks heroine Arcola bounced back to form in no uncertain style with an easy victory in the Caradoc Gold Cup over 2850m, a race which was run on very soft ground and which proved to be a very considerable test of stamina.
Dream Star Handicap-(L) over 1800m on inner track at Turffontein Jo Soma-trained Happy Landing (8/1), ridden by Muzi Yeni, holds off a flying Royal Arrow
Golden Parachute has long promised to win a decent stayers’ event and finally delivered when he captured the Gr3 Chairman’s Cup over 3200m at Kenilworth on Saturday, the final Feature event of the Cape summer season.
Dancewiththedevil looks to be a filly with a future and she made her first venture into Stakes company a successful one when she won the Acacia Handicap over 1600m
Mike de Kock always looked to hold a powerful hand in the Gauteng Guineas and took away almost three-quarters of the million rand stake on offer when stable companions Link Man and Kavanagh captured the first two places.
The eagerly awaited rematch between Igugu and Hollywoodboulevard in the Gauteng Fillies Guineas turned into a one-horse parade as Igugu comprehensively wreaked her revenge on her fellow Australian import and ran out the most emphatic of winners. The two had famously met in the Ready To Run Cup over 1400m in early November, where Hollywoodboulevard sprang a 25/1 upset by capsizing 7/20 favourite Igugu, but nearly four months later it was a wholly different story.
The road has been a bumpy one for Earl Of Surrey since he won the Gr 1 Golden Horse Casino Sprint in May 2009, a race which proved to be his last for well over a year, but he proved conclusively that he can still perform at a high level by winning the Hawaii Stakes over 1400m, where his late dash saved the day for the 7yo.
Magico has always looked to be a sprinter of very real promise and the three-year-old recorded his biggest success to date when he won the Tommy Hotspur Handicap over the straight 1000m course at Turffontein last Tuesday night. In the process he credited his trainer Paul Peter with his first success considerably less than a year after he took out his licence, and also gave sire Dupont his first stakes winner.
Hollywoodboulevard has struck up a highly profitable relationship with jockey Willie Figueroa and the combination is now undefeated from four joint efforts after Hollywoodboulevard justified favouritism in the Three Troikas Stakes over 1450m on the Turffontein inner course on Saturday. The veteran rider fondly known as “Figgy” first partnered Hollywoodboulevard when she capsized red-hot favourite Igugu to win the valuable Ready To Run Cup in November and the combination has been in irrepressible form since.
Sunday’s Hollywoodbets Greyville feature, the non black-type Model Man Mile, won by Mike de Kock’s Artist’s Pride, paid tribute to one of South Africa’s greatest turf legends of the 20th century.
A man we are privileged to have known as a loyal friend of this great game and of the Sporting Post, a personal mate, and one of South African horseracing’s great characters, Shaheen Shaw, a husband, loving Dad and Grandad, passed away suddenly at the age of 55
