Andrew Harrison
Patrick Kruyer was a regular during the KZN winter season when assistant to Terrance Millard back in the 1980’s but he arrived for this year’s Champions Season with just two modest runners stabled with old friend Michael Roberts.
One of them was Charlie Bucket who arrived with a string of places behind his name. That changed first time out as he got his maiden behind him and he followed up with an impressive second win, leading all the way under Rachel Venniker, in the C Stakes that headed the card at Hollywoodbets Scottsville yesterday.
The addition of a compression mask and earmuffs to his racing equipment appears to have him turn the corner. Slow out when winning his maiden, he ‘pinged’ the gate yesterday and was not for the catching with a wall of horses chasing him home.
Taking a leaf out of Venniker’s playbook, Tristan Godden made all aboard Rikkitikkitavi for Andre Nel, but it was a close run thing as he was chased home by a wall of horses, one being Captain’s Pride with Keagan de Melo riding an excellent race only to fail by a head.
Rikkitikkitavi was game up front as he kept finding all the way to the line while De Melo sat for as long as he dared on Captain’s pride before asking for maximum and just running out of runway.
Owen Heffer, the head honcho of Hollywoodbets and the man behind Race Coast and Champion Owners Hollywood Racing, gave former local trainer Craig Ramsay, now resident in New Zealand, a brief to buy some well-bred fillies to race in this country.
The first of these to run was a winner. Australian-bred Umoyawokubambelela put the field to bed in the second in spite of doing very little right. Slow out of the gate and last for much of the race, Gavin Lerena slowly allowed her to build momentum and once into stride, she left to opposition for dead.
According to Hollywood Racing’s manager Anthony Delpech, Umoyawokubambelela had a rough time in quarantine suffering from colic and having a colic operation, so the decision to leave the filly with Wengi Masawi and his team in the quiet climbs of the Ashburton paid dividends as she won with authority.
Stuart Ferrie got his season off to a winning start as the well supported Iceberg Rose finished off her race smartly to touch off Paul Lafferty’s first timer Fleur Delacour in the first with favourite Forthegoodtimes in third.
Lovecomesknocking and Sweet Cherry set a strong gallop but both came up empty. The winner and runner-up both finished strongly with little separating them at the line. Forthegoodtimes was slow out and briefly looked as if she would make a race of it but was a tad one-paced at the business end and does appear to be looking for further.
CaLvin Habib had an armchair ride on Peaceful Duchess for Dennis Bosch in the first leg of the Pick 6.
Keagan de Melo tried to make all on Future Prospect but the writing was on the wall a long way out as Peaceful Duchess moved up under the hands to come home a comfortable winner with Future Prospect staying on for second.
Glen Kotzen held the key to the Class 4 over 2000m with Golden Angel and Sesame. The two met at their previous start with Sesame on the right side of the photo. Golden Angel was 3.5kg better off in yesterday’s race but Sesame defied the handicappers and stormed to a comfortable win from Golden Angel with the gamble on Our Lady Fate, 10’s into 4’s, going awry. The race was run in two halves. If Habib had it easy in the previous race Zena’s Act got the better of him from the jump as she took a hold of the bit and hurtled off to the front and her race was run down the back straight as the opposition tracked her some 10 lengths adrift.
Janes Vision, back to the mark at which she last won, made all under apprentice Dezahan Louw to land the D Stakes for Michael Roberts. Out in a flash, Louw made a bee-line for the inside fence, a smart move given the mares tendency to hang right, but once there she was not for the catching with Champagne Mac, slow to start, flashing up late to snatch second.
De Melo may have timed his run a little too late aboard Captain’s Pride but he made amends for Louis Goosen. Just off the pace in the early exchanges, Blazing Fury came with a storming late run under a big weight to win the last going away from long-time pacemaker Axis Power and Luneluck, who was not so lucky as he got caught between Axis Power and Blazing Fury and Venniker was forced to ease for a few strides .
