Happy Pills keeps Turffontein stipes busy
Happy Pills, who runs in the colours of Gary Player, won his fourth career victory at Turffontein on Saturday but he had to do so in the stewards’ room.
Happy Pills, who went off 5-2 favourite, and well supported Stonehenge (6-1) fought all the way to the line over the final 400m but Stonehenge, with S’manga Khumalo up, appeared to hold on by a head. However, in doing so, he had hung across to the inside, causing interference to Happy Pills, with Lyle Hewitson up.
To make matters even more intriguing, in the concluding stages, Stavinsky had to ease when awkwardly placed on the heels of Happy Pills.
The stipes immediately called for a race review and that resulted in two objections, the first by Hewitson against Stonehenge and the second by Leon Erasmus, trainer of fourth-placed Stavinsky, also against the winner.
That kept the stipes busy but in the end they overruled the objection by Stavinsky as they felt the incident had not affected the result of the race, but refunded the deposit. However, they upheld the objection by Happy Pills as they were of the opinion that but for the incident, the Mike Azzietrained runner would have finished in front of Stonehenge.
The objection was similar to that at Greyville last week between Hermoso Mundo and Captain Splendid, which was also upheld and one must congratulate the consistency of the stipes in this regard.
The results overall were good for the public but the one massive disappointment was that of Matthew Lips. Sean Tarry’s charge went off at 5-10 but was never in the hunt.
S’manga Khumalo reported he felt something amiss with his mount and this was confirmed by the course veterinary doctor who found Matthew Lips was not striding out left front.