National Pride
ROBYN LOUW: I know I covered the Grand National last week, but it was such an interesting race this year that I thought I’d write about it again.
11th April 2013
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ROBYN LOUW: I know I covered the Grand National last week, but it was such an interesting race this year that I thought I’d write about it again.
ROBYN LOUW: The first Saturday in April heralds the annual pilgrimage to Aintree for the race that stops the English Nation
ROBYN LOUW: It’s been a busy weekend with a win by upcoming superstar Sedge and the CPYS Book 2 sale
ROBYN LOUW: R7.5 milion up for grabs with the newly launched 3YO Challenge Series, the exclusive reserve of graduates of the CPYS Book 2.
ROBYN LOUW: In 1974 Tony Kalmanson established Varsfontein Stud just outside Paarl and the Kalmanson name has been a fixture on the local racing landscape ever since.
ROBYN LOUW: I kicked off my week with a chat to Richard Maxwell one of the world’s leading Horse Whisperers
ROBYN LOUW: The internet is a weird, wide and wonderful place and attracts an incredibly diverse mix of people and so I found Folly – a spanking good read.
ROBYN LOUW: Now he’s the Met winner and on top of the world. These are the stories we keep coming back for.
ROBYN LOUW: “They say money doesn’t buy happiness. But it does buy books. And that’s sort of the same thing.”
ROBYN LOUW: Queen’s Plate 2013. I was a little nervous after a couple of days of rain and then a pumping South Easter, but the racing and weather gods conspired to deliver a perfect days racing.
ROBYN LOUW: Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Which obviously adds enormously to the challenge and the mystique, but sometimes an instruction manual might not be all bad.
The number of entries compares favourably in quantum with recent years, with 58 first entries received in 2024, 60 in 2023, 68 in 2022, 53 in 2021, 52 in 2020, 49 in 2019, and 69 in 2018
Ironically, it was a colt which provided Alan with a first Gr1 success, this being Alec and Gillian Foster’s homebred Cereus, who landed the 2001 Gold Cup at Hollywoodbets Greyville, his victory completing a momentous double on the day, with the Gr2 Golden Slipper having gone the way of juvenile filly Tatler, a great-great-great grandaughter of Sun Lass!
JP van der Merwe is not the only guilty party in the matter. In simple terms, he is the only rider to have exercised the NHA’s offer of an Acknowledgement Of Guilt and moved on with his life
Andrew Fortune made it three winners on the Family Day public holiday as Tenango breezed home to win the Gr3 feature
