Walter Smoothie moves into No 1 box
Jack Milner
Move over Yulong Prince, Walter is moving in.
Surcharge had been the apple of trainer Stuart Pettigrew’s eye and had his place in the No 1 box at the stable in Randjesfontein. He was sold to a Chinese group after his win the Grade 1 Daily News 2000 and had his name changed to Yulong Prince.
With the prince gone, another smoothie had to be found to take his place and they found him – Walter Smoothie. This son of Biarritz attempted 3200m for the first time on Saturday when he contested the Listed Racing Association Handicap at Turffontein.
It was quite a performance by this fellow. The field was called back after the first jump because Tirzan pushed the gate open before the start was effected and a false start was declared. Most of the runners were pulled up quickly but Walter Smoothie had run a good 300m before apprentice Diego de Gouveia could get him to stop.
Despite all that, he hit the front at the 400m mark and kept on resolutely to hold off Ali Bon Dubai by 1.25 lengths.
One very happy man was new assistant trainer Jason van der Bank who was the man who collected all the trophies on behalf of Pettigrew and Walter Smoothie’s Mauritian owner.
“I’ve only been with him for a month and this is our first winner together,” he said. Not bad to have a Listed race as a good starting point.
Van der Bank mentioned that Walter Smoothie had moved into the stable’s No 1 box was not keen to discuss plans for the future at this stage.