Mike Bass, hopefully buoyed by Saturday’s Kenilworth double, has made remarkable progress in the past seven days.
No longer is he in a coma and, while his ability to speak is severely curtailed, he has managed on different occasions to indicate that (a) he wants a cup of tea, (b) he is bored and (c) he would like to go home.
Speech is difficult because of the tracheotomy performed to help his breathing. It’s not quite the human equivalent of hobdaying but his horses will sympathise.
Of course it hasn’t all been upward progress. Seemingly the doctors have expressed concerns about the amputated leg and son Mark’s running commentary on the stable website has, somewhat inevitably, revealed almost as many bad days as good ones.
Daughter Candice said on Saturday: “He was quite good today. He is very weak and still on the dialysis but the doctors say that his kidneys will come right.”
She again stressed that recovery is going to take a long time but after less than three weeks it’s a far cry from the early prognosis that gave him no better than a five per cent chance of survival. Seemingly his dour toughness, calm temperament and fighting spirit are all helping and, while the home straight is still a long way off, he has certainly got back into it after that potentially fatal start.
Marsh Shirtliff, whose colours have been made legendary by Bass-trained horses, said after Spirit Of Hamilton got up close home that the trainer was watching on TV and added: “Mike is on the way back which is super.”
Grant van Niekerk, who hardly lets a winner go past without mentioning his boss, had words of encouragement for him after landing the opening maiden on the mammoth 537kg newcomer Moonlight ‘ N Roses.
He said: “She is very temperamental but she will carry on winning. I lost three or four lengths at the start and I had to squeeze my way through gaps to win.”
Unfortunately she also drifted sharply right in the closing stages, badly hampering fourth-placed Kryptonite, and her rider was given seven days for failing to prevent it. Craig du Plooy suffered the same penalty after runner-up Brilliant Idea forced Bridget Dubois (sixth) to ease.
Donavan Mansour got off the Cape Town mark as a jockey when odds-on Hard Day’s Night managed the remarkable feat of drifting all the way across from the faster ground on the inside to the slower going on the stands side. He still won in a common canter.
Joey Ramsden explained the drifting, saying: “He had slight sore shins about ten days ago and he was probably feeling them again but he is a smashing big horse.”
Donovan Dillon is fast establishing himself with the Snaiths and he rode two of the stable’s four winners, earning high praise from the boss for the way he grabbed the Matus Handicap by the scruff of the neck to make all Ovidio – “Donovan made his own call to go to the front. That was a good sign from a young jockey and shows that he is in Cape Town to do business.”
Ronnie Sheehan’s big race ambitions may be centred on Captain Chaos but he reckons that Mambo Fever is also going to make the news. The filly apparently worked like a dream last Tuesday and won for the second time inside three weeks under Robert Khathi – “She is going to be a top class filly later in the season,” enthused a man who has been in racing for 65 years.
By Michael Clower
Picture: Mike Bass (Nkosi Hlophe)
