IRISH-owned champion sprinter Kasimir covered himself in glory when beaten by little more than a length into third under top-weight in the Group 1 Golden Horse Sprint at Scottsville last Saturday.
The six-furlong race, despite being a Group 1, is a handicap and the five-year-old was giving weight all round including 16lb to both the winner Warrior’s Rest and runner-up Ultra Magnus.
The Captain Al five-year-old carries the Nagle colours and is out of an Australian-bred mare by Arc winner Peintre Celebre. He is going to be hard to beat in the weight-for-age Mercury Sprint at Greyville at the end of next month.
Warrior’s Rest, by rising star What A Winter, is the third Golden Horse Sprint winner in four seasons for champion trainer Sean Tarry. He performed the same feat in the Group 1 South African Fillies Sprint with 2019 winner Celtic Sea. Another Captain Al, the four-year-old is out of a Brazilian mare by the 1996 2000 Guineas winner Mark Of Esteem.
Gavin Lerena’s mount had to fight for it and it was only on the post that the 11/12 favourite pipped the Kieswetter-owned Run Fox Run and 16/1 shot Singforafa. “She hit a flat spot at about the 550m mark and you can’t force her so I had to take my medicine and wait for her to come to me,” said the jockey.
Dennis Drier,73, won the Group 1 Golden Horse Medallion for the eighth time in his 43-year training career when Tempting Fate convincingly beat stable companion Pray For Rain and, according to rider Sean Veale, this colt is exceptional. “When I galloped him the first time I said to the boss that we have something special. I haven’t sat on a horse like him in my whole career and whenever I ride him I get goosebumps,” he said.
Gavin van Zyl jnr is starting out on his training career and had his first winner at the top level when Vernichey (by Vercingetorix) won the fourth Group 1 on Scottsville’s day of speed, the Allan Robertson Championship, under Warren Kennedy.
JUSTIN Snaith has three of the top six in the betting for the Vodacom Durban July in a fortnight’s time and Richard Fourie, bidding for his third win in South Africa’s most famous race, will partner joint favourite Belgarion.
Do It Again, bidding for an unprecedented third success, will be ridden by Anton Marcus who holds the record for the race with five winners. Grant van Niekerk, now back in South Africa after being fired by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, is on Bunker Hunt.
SOUTH African racing has lost an important ally. Independent Newspapers, formerly owned by the Irish Independent and the country’s main English-language paper with daily publications in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria, has dropped its racing page.
Its circulation, size and advertising plummeted during lockdown and, when racing resumed, all it would agree to carry each day was one card and tips plus the previous day’s Tote returns – no previews, reports, or racing news.
Die Burger, the main Afrikaans paper, gave up its coverage of racing some 20 years ago but, fortunately, racing is still well catered for by the Tellytrack racing channel which is free to those taking the R800 (€42) a month DSTV subscription package. It shows every South African race as well as a whole host of racing from Europe, USA and Australia.