ABASHIRI, named after one of the coldest places in Japan, looks hot for the South African Derby at the end of the month after powering home nearly four lengths clear in the SA Classic at Turffontein last Saturday.

Karl Zechner’s mount justified odds of 3/5 even more easily than he had done in the Gauteng Guineas five weeks earlier when he also started favourite - albeit at a rather less prohibitive price - and he seems sure to become only the second South African Triple Crown winner this century.

The one surprise came at the presentation ceremony when trainer Mike Azzie revealed that the horse had come perilously close to missing the race.

“On the Monday three weeks before the race I received a call from my son, saying ‘Come to the stables quickly – we’ve got a problem,’” Azzie related, the attendant press corps all agog.

“The horse had hurt himself badly and I didn’t think he would make it to the racecourse.

“I phoned the owner straightaway and he nearly bit my head off. We poulticed the leg and it was eight days’ box rest which meant only ten days’ work into the race. I was really worried but I knew he was a fit horse prior to the setback so I said we would replan the gallop and fortunately it all worked out perfectly.”

Azzie, a big burly man and something of a character, continued: “I’m not the easiest guy to work for and for the past three weeks I’ve been impossible. I came down hard on my staff but they took it with a smile.

SPECIAL HORSE

“This is a special horse and watching him makes you wonder if you are ever going to get another one like him. The last horse I saw pull his way to the front like he did today was Horse Chestnut, the Triple Crown winner of 1999.”

It was a first Group 1 success for Zechner who recalled how Azzie used to jock him off whenever it came to the big races before adding: “I’ve ridden some good horses since I’ve been in Johannesburg but this one tops the cake. He made it feel like an ordinary race.”

Abashiri is a son of the American Grade 1 winner Go Deputy out of a half-sister to the South African Derby and Met winner Yard-Arm.

Earlier last Saturday Cloth Of Cloud, so impressive on her Kenilworth debut in January when part-owners Linda Shanahan and Diane Nagle were there to see her, stepped up to Group 3 company for the Pretty Polly Stakes and proved much too good for the opposition.

However, as she reached the post, she suddenly dug her toes in and she pulled herself up in three strides. She proved to be perfectly alright physically but she had a reputation for being temperamental well before she saw a racecourse.

“This filly is going to test me in a big way,” said champion trainer Sean Tarry. “There is no doubting her ability but let’s hope we can get her a bit more settled than she is right now.”

Tarry won five of the ten races including the HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes with Queen’s Plate winner Legal Eagle who proved much too strong for last year’s winner Captain America, who had finished fourth in the Queen’s Plate.

Anton Marcus, a little surprisingly perhaps, went straight to the front on the hot favourite and, although champion jockey Gavin Lerena dashed 25-1 shot New Predator into what looked like a commanding lead in the straight, Legal Eagle was back in front just inside the final furlong and strode away.

“I never really wanted to lead and as he is running in the President’s Champions Challenge here on April 30th, I did go a little bit slow,” Marcus reported. “Gavin went the best part of four lengths up but my horse was there for me when I wanted him.”

Cold As Ice retired

SOUTH African-bred Cold As Ice, who strained a tendon when starting favourite for the All-Weather Fillies and Mares Final at Lingfield on Good Friday, has been retired and has been sent to the National Stud at Newmarket for a six-week recuperation while the owners consider whether to have her covered to Southern Hemisphere time before sending her home.

Pathfork making impression

JESSICA Harrington’s National Stakes winner Pathfork is making an impression with his first crop and Cape Town trainer Glen Kotzen said: “I’ve got a stable full of them and they are very nice.”