Rainbow Bridge in the VDJ mix
ERIC SANDS and Chris Gerber yesterday tossed the unbeaten Rainbow Bridge into the Vodacom Durban July mix and the effect on the ante-post market could be like an unexploded grenade. The Wilgerbosdrift/Mauritzfontein-bred Ideal World gelding is unbeaten in three starts and he won Saturday’s Highlands Stud Winter Classic decisively, despite throwing away most of his best cards with almost reckless abandon.
Even so a July supplementary for such an inexperienced horse looked, in the immediate aftermath anyway, about as likely as tearing the guts out of him over a mile and a half in the mud of the Winter Derby.
After all the Queen’s Plate and the Sun Met are already on the horizon.
But Gerber knows that it can sometimes pay to strike while the iron is hot rather than play the long game, and Sands has on occasion had more disappointments served up than breakfast.
After yesterday morning’s repast he issued an upbeat bulletin, saying: “Rainbow Bridge pulled up fairly well – apart from a little bit of warmth in one joint – and it is now the intention to go the July route provided the horse is 100%.”
Richard Fourie’s mount was backed down to odds-on at Kenilworth on Saturday – when the word soft appeared in the going description for the first time since last September – but his backers could hardly believe it when they say him so close to the pace.
“He was tugging the whole way. He never came back to Richard,” said the trainer.
Fourie candidly admitted: “I thought I rode a bad race. I was going to try to be three or four lengths off them but then he started over-racing. I now think that he is better switched off sitting last but he is a quality horse with a very bright future.”
Rocket Countdown
Rocket Countdown, conceding a kilo, was beaten a length and Doublemint was half a length further back third although Callan Murray was left under no illusions about finishing any closer – “The winner dropped a gear and he was never coming back.”
Certainly the winner’s merit rating considerably understates his ability.
Handicapping rules meant that he could not be raised higher than 84 for his Winter Guineas win and a further ten points is the maximum he can get for this.
Joey Ramsden might have been concentrating more on Scottsville but he still found time to plot Call To Account’s victory in the Olympic Duel Stakes.
Drawn on the unfavoured inside, he advised Donovan Dillon to resist the temptation to tack across.
Only three horses stayed with Bernard Kantor’s Captain Al filly but, unexpectedly, they occupied the first three places.
The 2-1 favourite was doing well to be racing at all as she fractured her off-fore last year.
Ramsden also won the third feature, the Stormsvlei Mile, with Fresnaye on whom an inspired Fourie came from miles back to get up inside the last 50m.
Sheehan
Finally, as you finish reading this, spare a thought for Ronnie Sheehan.
The octogenarian, battling all sorts of illnesses (and now a lung infection as well) in the Panorama Medi-Clinic, has been in racing over much of the southern half of Africa for almost 70 years.
He is down to a handful of horses but the aptly-named Over Again was his second winner in a week - and he was on at 8-1!