Golden Chance pays her way
BALLADEER Peter Sarstedt once sang a popular hit about a ‘lovely’ that got a racehorse for Christmas but it was a wedding present that arrived at Scottsville yesterday. Given the vagaries of the sport, the Christmas present may just as easily have turned out to be a moderate maiden but Mary Slack’s wedding present to daughter Jessica and husband Steven Jell has turned into a swan.
There has not been an easier winner of a race in KZN since Run Rhino Run took his rider on a scenic trip of Greyville – and bolting home in a barrier trial yesterday - but yesterday’s performance by odds-on favourite Golden Chance was a far more impressive and had Sean Veale looking for the opposition some two furlongs out.
“I kept on looking back to see if it was a false start,” he said as he rolled home on the Dennis Driertrained filly by an official seven lengths that could have been many more had Veale put the hammer down. “This was nothing but solid pace-work.”
Given her pedigree, Golden Chance has already paid her way.
In contrast, Rocket Fire is unlikely to make it to stud unless Duncan Howells is able to cool his temperament as the good-looking son of Rock Of Gibraltar, who started favourite for the second, boiled over in the paddock coming close to chopping one of his lead grooms in half.
He went to the start with a lead pony but he was head-in-the-air all the way home as he gave Craig Zackey a difficult ride and never looked like threatening.
But those punters who followed the money, were in the money. Perfect Peter found some solid market support and Gavin van Zyl’s runner landed the gamble in convincing fashion.
Van Zyl is one trainer who uses barrier trials to his advantage and after making a useful debut late last year, Perfect Peter was given two trials in the interim. “He’s a smart horse.
A beautiful, beautiful horse,” enthused Van Zyl after the gelding’s four-length romp.
Ohh La La
Dave Hawkins and Pat Robinson have been staunch supporters of Richmond trainer Doug Campbell and both were on course to lead in Ohh La La after winning the third.
Both go back to the early 1990’s as owners and this was Hawkins’s 100th winner as an owner.
Scottsville is a track that finds out many a horse but there are others that excel on the track. Burra Boy is one such as the seven-year-old gelding racked up his fifth victory from 44 starts with 17 places in between. He plugged gamely up the inside rail under Brandon Lerena to deny Gauteng raider runner Defy Gravity by a rapidly diminishing short-head much to the chagrin of the visiting supporters who bellowed long and hard from the members balcony.
So Var
With modern photo-finish technology dead-heats are few and far between these days but not even a pixel separated Drageda and So Var in the fifth.
“We tried,” said head judge Wayne Simpson. “We blew up the picture until the pixel’s got blurred.” Drageda looked deadand-buried 400m out with commentator Craig Peters calling him under pressure, but he rallied hard and was a winner a stride after the line.
Unlucky was Archilles who took a knock early in the race and was then chief sufferer as Antony Hotspur drifted across under pressure causing a concertina effect that certainly compromised Archilles’s chances.