The 2024/2025 Cape Racing Summer Festival of Racing got underway with the running of South Africa’s first 2yo contest of the season, the R250 000 Futurity Plate, run over the 800m straight at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday.
Black Cheetah (Richard Fourie) claim the first victory of the day, the Futurity Plate (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Run under glorious summer skies, it was an incident-free first day at school for the nine first-timers, with Justin Snaith’s ‘talking’ horse Black Cheetah, a half-brother to the top yard’s classic prospect Great Plains, stamping his authority after running green and being marginally outpaced early on.
Richard Fourie got to work early on the handsome R1 million ticket and the son of Querari went on at a generous 2-1 to beat the filly Call Of The Karoo (5-2) by 3,75 lengths in a quick time of 47,79 secs for the 800m.
The rest were well beaten, with Piet Steyn’s Between The Lines (6-1) a further 3,25 lengths back in third.
Bred by Drakenstein Stud, Black Cheetah is a son of Querari (Oasis Dream) out of the one-time winning Var mare, Mara. He is raced in a partnership of the breeder and Fiona Carmichael’s Westward Bloodstock Ltd.
A R1 million Cape Premier Yearling Sale graduate, he was a horse that trainer Justin Snaith admitted that he had fallen in love with when he arrived at the yard.
Cape Racing’s attention to detail with their new-look juvenile programme is clearly paying dividends in an environment where we would not have seen this kind of quality on show so early on, in years gone by. Increased stakes and a revitalized and a well-thought-out programme has well and truly changed the landscape of juvenile competition in the province. Let’s hope that more trainers will be buying in.
Next up on the eight racemeeting calendar of summer action is the Sip & Shop, featuring the World Sports Betting Gr1 Cape Fillies Guineas on 7 December.
