Crawford on a roll
Drier has won a Gr 1, Paul Matchett has won a Gr 1, Howells has won a Gr 2, Candice Bass-Robinson has won a Gr 2 and Kannemeyer and Gavin van Zyl have each won a Listed event.
The Crawford yard’s 27 Champions Season runs this season have also netted nine places, including three Gr 1 places.
Search Party
Former Springbok rugby fly-half Lance Sherrell and his mother, Delma, have worn broad grins for a few weeks as they have watched the Crawford-trained pair Search Party and Gulf Storm run second and fourth respectively in their colours in the Gr 1 Tsogo Sun Sprint and they also own a share in the Crawford’s Gr 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge winner Captain America.
The Post Merchants was the cherry on top, although there might well be more to come. It is fitting the Sherrell’s black and white colours are doing well in KZN as all of Lance, his late father Reg and his grandfather, Reg Evelyn, played rugby for Natal.
Crawford-trained horses commandeer the top three positions in the Champions Season’s highest earnings with Gr 1 Daily News 2000 winner Edict Of Nantes on top with R1,27 million, Captain America second on R637 500 and Gr 1 Woolavington winner Lady Of The House third on R635 000. Search Party is in ninth spot on R447500.
Another statistic where Crawford is top is the betting profit per runner. For a R1 stake put on all 27 of his runners they would have returned a profit of R41.
Corné Orffer has ridden three of Crawford’s seven winners and deserves plenty of credit for Search Party’s win on Friday night.
There was no false rail for the race and this was always going to favour the low draws and the handy to front-running types.
Orffer was aware of this and his first winning move was to use Search Party’s early pace from a fair draw of six to claim the rail in front.
Orffer extracted a kick out of the four-year-old Captain Al gelding at the top of the straight and this was the second winning move, as it saw him stealing two lengths on the field. The improved fouryear-old Captain Al gelding kept going well to hold on by 0,25 lengths for a thoroughly deserved second career Gr 2 victory. The runner up was last year’s Equus Champion Sprinter Talktothestars, who had sat handy on the rail from a draw of two and produced a flying finish with topweight. He gave the winner 2kg so it was another fine performance by South Africa’s most travelled superstar.
The third-placed Amazing Strike was drawn in pole and sat behind Search Party in the running. Fourth-placed Captain’s Causeway was also drawn well in five.
The favourite Professor Brian’s chances looked forlorn after Search Party’s telling kick for home.
He could only manage sixth, but did run on well and it is too early to tell whether the handicapper has his measure. His five successive wins before this race saw him rising from a 58 to a 91 merit rating.
Crawford is the leading Cape trainer on the national log and before yesterday’s racing he was only R110,162.50 behind thirdplaced Mike de Kock.