Grant van Niekerk’s nervous final strides of the very last graded stakes feature of the 2023/24 SA Champions season have seen the popular Cape rider incur a fine for his error.
A late replacement for the indisposed Aldo Domeyer, we reported at the time that Grant van Niekerk did everything perfectly for 1975m of the 2000m of the R500 000 Riding High Together Gr2 Gold Bracelet on the Cape raider Red Palace. The race was run on the season feature finale, the World Pool Gold Cup day.
Fright night! Grant van Niekerk glances across as Corne Orffer and Saartjie cut down Red Palace’ lead – it ended well! (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Van Niekerk had the well backed Candice Bass-Robinson trained Red Palace stalking the leader Lady Of Power two lengths off the gallop.
Into the home run, Rascova moved past the leader and made a dash for glory, with Van Niekerk making his run down the middle.
Red Palace sailed past Rascova and was going away – that’s until Van Niekerk erred, dropping his hands just metres from the line.
Despite the mistake, Red Palace (5-2) hung on by a diminishing neck to beat the courageous Saartjie (7-1), who had made up a load of lengths under Corne Orffer from way back off a bad draw, in a time of 122,74 secs.
The National Horseracing Authority charged Van Niekerk under rule 62.2.3, because, as the rider of Red Palace he failed to ride this horse out to the end of the race to the satisfaction of the Stewards. He was fined R2500.
Van Niekerk rode his fifth winner of the new season at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on Friday, when Jou Lekker Ding scored at 16-1 for Vaughan Marshall and the Hollywood Syndicate.
Grant van Niekerk steers Jou Lekker Ding to victory at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Friday (Pic – Cape Racing)
