Those who follow statistics will be interested to find that the latest National Trainer Championship log shows Gqeberha-based Alan Greeff in second spot behind only Justin Snaith.
More impressively, he currently leads the way on sheer number of winners. Take a bow Alan!
Greeff Team Flashback! Stanley Greeff (seated) with his team, from left to right: Alan Greeff, Brian Elder, Yvette Bremner, Tania Salter, Anelle Wilmot (Pic – Supplied)
The Greeff family has carved out a proud record in East Cape racing stretching way back to the early sixties, when Alan’s late father Stanley relocated from Cape Town.
A dedicated horseman, he would dominate Eastern Cape racing through the 1970s, ‘80s and into the ‘90s, winning every major race on the racing calendar.
In addition, he was widely recognized as a masterful trainer of fillies, many of which became hugely successful broodmares, arguably the most notable being Paddock Stakes winner Sun Lass, who became dam of champion Yataghan and stakes winners Violetta, Tallulah, Runnymede and Gallantry.
In fact, the Greeff stables are named after the accomplished Ascot Stud-bred filly Halo, a multiple stakes winner of 10 races and a full-sister to the Greeff-trained champion Mermaid.
In the mid 1990s, Stanley passed the baton to Alan, who seamlessly stepped into his father’s giant shoes and continued in similarly successful vein, leading the province’s champion trainer log on numerous occasions.
Alan too, has been a dab hand at training top fillies, having tightened the girth on standouts such as Annie (dam of champion Ice Cube and Gr1 performer Jagged Ice), Tarn Fairy and more recently Santa Therese, Luna Halo and Splicethemainbrace.
Alan Greeff (right) greets colleague Zietsman Oosthuizen after the null and void race at Fairview on Tuesday – which was ‘won’ by Ziets’ charge, Bosnay (Pic – Pauline Herman)
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!
This season the Greeff stable is once again blessed with a powerful arsenal of female runners, for in addition to Luna Halo and Splicethemainbrace, Alan also trains a number of exciting juvenile fillies, headed by unbeaten Direct Hit.
A Ridgemont homebred, this daughter of Canford Cliffs travelled to Hollywoodbets Kenilworth in January and promptly showed up the locals with a facile victory in the Gr3 Cape of Good Hope Nursery on Derby day.
Cereus (Stuart Randolph) is seen in red and gold, one back in centre, before going on to win the 2001 Gold Cup – Alan Greeff’s first Grade 1 winner (Pic – Supplied)
This past Friday, she stretched her record to a perfect three for three with an equally impressive doddle in the Listed East Cape Nursery. She is not the first progeny of Canford Cliffs to excel for the stable, that honour belongs to fellow Ridgemont homebred Cliff Top, who captured the Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes in 2022.
Incidentally, Canford Cliff’s purple patch continued on Easter Monday when four-year-old son Tenango carried Ian Longmore’s silks to a fluent victory in the Gr3 Champagne Stakes at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth.
Ridgemont will be dreaming of a first Gr1 success for their veteran stallion as Direct Hit is being targeted at the all-important Allan Robertson Fillies Championship, a race Alan previously won in 2003 with Fred Crabbia’s Silver Arc, having run second in 1996 with Tarn Fairy, who went on to land the Gr2 JB McIntosh Fillies Classic two months later.
By the way, Alan’s success with Tarn Fairy’s family continued through the next two generations, for he also trained her daughter Blushing Fairy as well as the latter’s daughter Yoshie, both multiple stakes winners.
Auctioneer Steve Davis and Ascot Stud’s Dr Ashley Parker join in the celebration of a Greeff six-timer in 2023 at Fairview. Kendall Mienie is in the saddle (Pic – Pauline Herman)
This season, Allan finds himself in the enviable position of having more than one talented juvenile filly to go to war with.
In addition to Direct Hit, there is also Master Of My Fate’s daughter Golden Palm, who flashed the Greeff firepower with an eyecatching win in Turffontein’s Gr2 SA Fillies Nursery, thereby providing the stable with an historic first stakes success on the Highveld.
She is likely to join Direct Hit on a float bound for Durban, as could another Canford Cliffs filly in Hot Sauce, who earned her first black type when third behind Direct Hit in the Nursery.
