Clouds Unfold eyes Guineas
CLOUDS UNFOLD has next season’s Cape Fillies Guineas as a major target after comprehensively outpointing her male rivals in the Cape Of Good Hope Nursery at a rain-softened Kenilworth on Saturday. Aldo Domeyer, who also won this Grade 3 on fellow What A Winter-sired Dutch Philip 12 months ago, rode a waiting race on the Drakenstein homebred but was able to pick off those in front without recourse to much more than hands and heels. He had runner-up Seventh Sea three lengths back and apparently it was even more impressive than it looked. He said: “I thought I would shake her up at the 500m mark to see what I had under me and she really turned it on. There is definitely something big in the pipeline.”
This was the 15th Cape Town two-year-old success of the season for Candice Bass-Robinson who added: “Clouds Unfold will get a mile and she has a nice turn of foot. I would hope that she will prove to be a Guineas filly.”
Arabian Air
Arabian Air, though, proved a costly beaten favourite for the third successive race and dropped out to finish plumb last. The veterinary examination ordered by the stipes revealed nothing but Donovan Dillon, who has ridden the colt in all four starts, had no doubt and reported: “He was not himself. He is still growing and so we will put him away for a while.”
In the Kenilworth Fillies Nursery it was Mrs Bass-Robinson and her jockey who suffered the reverse with odds-on Nous Voila managing only third after looking an assured winner approaching the furlong pole. She seemed to run lead-footed in the closing stages.
Her trainer said: “She has a bit of a Judpot action and I don’t think she enjoyed the ground.”
The race was won by the 28-1 outsider of the field who was apparently only entered to make up the numbers. “There were just five entries and the Club asked us to put horses in,” related Glen Kotzen. “We’d always thought highly of Coral Bay and I felt she was a top prospect but I’d put her on the back-burner. She then put up a good gallop, I said that we had to help the Club and run her. I promised the owners that her next race would be round the turn in a maiden that she could win!”
Khathi
Robert Khathi, who had won this on an even longer shot two years ago – 45-1 chance Nordic Breeze - rode the Ideal World filly in the gallop, and said he then had to beg for the ride. But he delivered her to perfection to hit the front on the inner 100m from home. It was a satisfactory afternoon for Kotzen because he also won the Interbet.co.za Handicap with Ostinato for Green Street Bloodstock, winner number 13 (and the first in Cape Town) for 16year-old riding sensation Luke Ferraris.
Ryan Munger, 22, also rode his first Kenilworth winner when the Andre Nel-trained Room At The Top came away in the final furlong of the TAB Telebet Maiden to readily justify odds of 9-10. This was only Munger’s third visit to the course. However Ferraris could finish no closer than third on Siberian Husky who attracted an extraordinary amount of support in the mile handicap.
The three-year-old was backed from 13-1 to 100-30 favourite and made the running but was beaten into third by the Snaith-trained Green Archer who was brought from well back by Francois Herholdt.
Sandile Mbhele made it winner number 17 when springing a 281 shock on Seventh Silver in the opener. Grant Knowles led in the Vaughan Marshall winner – who made up five lengths in a furlong - and promptly announced that he is going to sell the colt to Mauritius. Runner-up Frank Lloyd Wright, expensive at 5-8, returned with an over-reach. JUSTIN SNAITH will know the fate of African Night Sky’s merit rating sometime this morning after the handicappers have assessed Saturday’s win in the Cup Trial. In the heat of the moment, Snaith was uncertain of any plans as to African Night Sky’s participation in the Vodacom Durban July, but with the benefit of hindsight the waters may settle.
“If we get hammered then we may take it on appeal but it will be up to Fred (Crabbia) to decide. “If it’s around four pounds, hopefully less, then we will probably take our medicine and crack on,” said Snaith on Saturday. So a lot hinges on which horse the handicappers choose as the ‘line-horse’, a horse that has run up to what they deem as its optimum rating.
Crowd Pleaser
If they choose either second placed Crowd Pleaser or third-placed Platinum Prince then the penalty could be as little as two pounds.
If the handicappers choose fourth placed Head Honcho, then the penalty could be as high as five pounds or even six given the ease of his victory.
Even with that in mind, the general consensus on course on Saturday was, “we’ve just seen the July winner!” and bookmakers tend to agree as African Night Sky was trading at short as 22-10 yesterday with Majestic Mambo and Do It Again at around 6-1.
The weights will be announced on Tuesday, June 19.