Bela-Bela is not done yet

BELA-BELA, only sixth when favourite for last year’s July, might yet be back next year after really turning on the style in the Jonsson Workwear Garden Province Stakes – much to the relief of Justin Snaith.

Anthony Delpech pressed the button just under two furlongs out and the 2120 favourite put the race to bed in a matter of strides, storming home nearly four lengths clear of 36-1 outsider She’s A Giver.

“I didn’t enjoy that at all,” Snaith declared. “All I was hearing all day was that Bela-Bela is the banker and I thought ‘Oh no.’ Thank God everybody won their bets. I prepped her all the Durban season to show just how good she is today.”

But brother, Jonathan, explained that the stable believes she can be even better.

“Whether she stays in training next season will be up to Varsfontein but we hope she will because she is only just coming into her own and we haven’t yet seen the best of her, and she is a typical Dynasty in that respect.”

Delpech might struggle to believe she could be even better than Saturday’s performance because he said: “She is a phenomenal filly and this was the best I have ever felt her.”

Snaith rounded off a treble in the last two races while Johan Janse van Vuuren, trainer of She’s A Giver, took two of the first three, notably the Betting World 2 200 with the aptlynamed Crowd Pleaser on whom Keagan de Melo made all.

Van Vuuren said: “Crowd Pleaser is not suited to the Turffontein long straights – they come and catch him there – so we will most likely leave him here and thereafter send him to Cape Town.”

Brett Crawford had some compensation for the Edict Of Nantes disappointment when Corne Orffer on Al Mariachi narrowly but convincingly justified 17-10 favouritism in the KZN Yearling Sale Million.

“He is a bit of a speed horse and I’m not sure whether he will get a mile,” said the trainer. “But he has got a future in front of him, that’s for sure.”