Fond Farewell. What A Winter wins his final Cape outing today.(Liesl King)
Champion sprinter What A Winter bid his Cape racing fans a winning farewell with a scintillating thirteenth victory at Kenilworth on Saturday. Returning from a break, the son of Western Winter was handicapped to win the modest R88 000 1000m Pinnacle Stakes, and he duly obliged.
Starting at a prohibitive 1 to 5, What A Winter’s regular pilot Bernard Fayd’herbe hardly raised a sweat as he jumped the 5yo casually before easing him back as Vardashian sped off down the inside the rail.
The pack of six settled down the outside and were led by Cap Alright, who was chased by Captain Harry with What A Winter loping along .
Vardashian had gone very fast and he tired inside the 400m as What A Winter cruised effortlessly into command as the rest looked to be under major pressure.
Mike Bass trained the first two home, as Lancelin came out of the pack to chase What A Winter, with Cap Alright hanging on grimly for third.
The Daytona Stud bred champion won by an official 2,25 lengths in a time of 57,99 secs. This was his thirteenth win with 5 places from 23 starts, and he took his earnings to R2 553 561.
He is on target for the R1 million Gr1 Computaform Sprint to be run at Turffontein on Saturday 27 April and the plan is for him to celebrate his swansong and go out in a blaze of glory in the Mercury Sprint to be run over 1200m at Clairwood on Saturday 13 July.
What A Winter goes to stud with all the credentials to make an impact.
He was Equus Champion Sprinter and Equus Champion Older Male in 2012.
He has campaigned at the top level, with 15 of his 23 starts in Graded races
He has won or been placed in 6 Gr1 races, and is not finished yet!
The son of thrice Champion Sire, Western Winter, is out of the Irish bred miler, Waseela.
His dam in fact produced 9 to race, of which 8 were winners and 3 were stakes winners.
Waseela is by spectacular Sire Ahonoora ,one of the few sires ever to produce an Epsom Derby winner and the dam of an Epsom Derby winner – next dam by Horse of the Year and Derby winner Troy.
He is from the family of Hyperion, Pharamond, Night Shift, Sickle, Hunter’s Moon, All Moonshine, to name a few.
What A Winter will stand at Drakenstein Stud for a fee of R20 000.
