Meu Capitano strides clear under Richard Fourie, with Questioning (Ashton Arries) and Jerusalema Rain (Anthony Andrews) chasing in vain (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
SA Champion jockey elect Richard Fourie continued his relentless record-breaking march to his first national title with a polished ride aboard Piet Steyn’s progressive 3yo Meu Capitano who ran away from his field to win the R200 000 non black-type Winter Sprint at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Sunday.
The sophomores filled the first three places as Meu Capitano (2-1) made it three on the trot as he broke away from his field at the 400m in an initially slow run 1200m, and extended impressively to beat Questioning (5-2), racing under new ownership, by 1,50 lengths, with Jerusalema Rain (6-1) in third.
Long time pacesetter Bereave faded late to round off the quartet.
The winner, carrying 1,5kgs overweight, clocked 71,2 secs
Bred by Beaumont Stud, Meu Capitano is raced by Carlos Goncalves and Domenico Luiz, and made it 4 wins with a place from 8 starts for stakes of R 369 039.
He is a son of Captain Of All (Captain Al) out of the one-time winning Jet Master mare, Rosetta Stone.
Richard Fourie observed that the winner is a fairly highly strung sort, and that he didn’t appear to enjoy the TCO2 testing, or the big screen television.
Meu Capitano, who was saddled by Elbert Steyn, ran off a 98 here, and in terms of the race conditions will not incur a penalty of more than 6 points. There will be no rating increase for placed & unplaced horses – that’s bound to please Vaughan Marshall, trainer of the 122-rated runner-up, Questioning.
The R250 000 Sunday carryover jackpot fell short of the R1 million projection, hitting a net R923 041-28.
