HKJC Champions Cup (Group 1)

PRINCESS Calla has next year’s Breeders’ Cup as her long-term objective after putting up a devastating performance in last Saturday’s HKJC Champions Cup at Greyville on the final day of the season.

Des Gonsalves, owner Mario Ferreira’s racing manager, confirmed that the Cartier Paddock Stakes at Kenilworth in January is a more immediate target but added: “Winning that means an invite to the Breeders’ Cup - and we have to dream big!”

The Maine Chance-bred Flower Alley mare has been placed in the last two runnings of the Paddock Stakes but the way she dealt with her male rivals in this nine-furlong Group 1 suggests she could well be better than ever.

Richard Fourie said: “She cracked a bad draw but, when I asked her the question, she was ready and waiting - and I knew it would take a superstar to run past her.”

Trainer Sean Tarry believes she already is a superstar, saying: “She can win a Group 1 over 1,000 metres and over 1,800 metres. I haven’t had one before who could do that.”

Mercury Sprint (Group 1)

Fourie, second in the race for the jockeys’ championship, also won the Group 1 Mercury Sprint on the What A Winter four-year-old Isivunguvungu for a relieved Peter Muscutt (“The last 100 metres was the longest I have ever watched!”).

Keagan de Melo’s mount Gimme A Prince started odds-on but came off worse in some scrimmaging leaving the stalls and was in trouble from then on.

He managed only fourth but that was one of the few setbacks in the new champion’s busy season – 275 winners from 1,434 rides. He will now try his luck in Hong Kong.

But the grass is not always greener elsewhere as Calvin Habib reflected after winning the mile two-year-old Group 1 World Pool Moment of the Day Champion Stakes on 7/1 shot Sandringham Summit.

“A couple of months ago I was in Singapore scratching my head. I couldn’t ride a winner,” he said before adding modestly: “Here I was the lucky pilot and I was really just a passenger. The horse told me when to go.”

The Varsfontein-bred son of Gimmethegreenlight was a first Group 1 winner for trainer David Nieuwenhuizen who said: “This is the best I’ve ever trained and he is going to be even better as a three-year-old.”

The fillies’ equivalent, the Group 1 Douglas Whyte Stakes, went to Bavarian Beauty, a Maine Chance-bred daughter of Querari out of a Silvano mare.

The 20/1 shot was well handled by Craig Zackey and was a first Group 1 success for Tony Peter, son of last year’s now-retired champion trainer Paul Peter.

Justin Snaith just got the better of Tarry to clinch his fourth trainers’ championship while Gaynor Rupert’s Drakenstein Stud was both the top owner and the leading breeder. Australian-bred Gimmethegreenlight was the champion sire.

IT was a red-letter day for Michael Moroney from Galway. He heads the Poet’s Corner Syndicate whose Pray For Rain won the last under Lyle Hewitson, and he brought the tricolour with him to South Africa!

“It’s my first time here,” he declared. “I only arrived late last night (his flight via Doha took the best part of 18 hours), this win means an awful lot to me and I’m speechless.”

He was due to fly back to Ireland on Tuesday as he had a runner at Galway on Wednesday. He was part-owner of One Cool Poet who won three times at the 2019 Galway Festival.