His four-year-old son Bezanova, a gelding bred by Clifton Stud and trained by Alec Laird, has developed into a magnificent specimen and showed his class at Turffontein on Saturday when winning the Gr 2 Peermont Emperor’s Palace Charity Mile under Weichong Marwing.

The following day the Paul Gadsby-trained Royal Colours, who is both owned and bred by the man who currently just can’t stay out of the winner’s enclosure, Roy Moodley, won a 2000m handicap on the Greyville polytrack under Sean Cormack and thereby achieved the rare feat of six wins in succession.

Bezanova is a big rangy horse and looked promising from the beginning. He won on debut over 1200m at Clairwood, when backed into 7/2, and followed up by winning over 1600m at Turffontein. He improved consistently in the three-year-old features last season, culminating in a three length third and 1,65 length fifth to the Equus Horse Of The Year Legislate in the Gr 2 KRA Guineas and Gr1 Daily News 2000 respectively.

He has latterly grown into his rangy frame and is now unbeaten in two starts this season. He will relish the 2000m trip of the prestigious Gr 1 Sansui Summer Cup so can’t be written off in that race, although he will likely be given a merit rated raise so will find it tough to beat Louis The King, who was fairly flying at the finish on Saturday despite needing the run.

Royal Colours took twelve starts to win his maiden and after beginning his handicap career on a merit rating of 61, has now risen to 80. He could add another win to his sequence due to his style of running, in which he is produced only in the last 300m. This means he never wins by far, so is never unduly punished by the handicapper.

Trainer Gadsby explained that this horse had always had the ability he is now displaying and there had never been a “turnaround” as such.

He said, “We fancied him strongly in the maiden at Scottsville in February (where he was stepped up in trip to 1950m). He was just touched off by the Mike de Kock-trained Ilitshe, who then went on to win his next two races, so the form was good. If he had happened to win that race he would likely have been given quite a high merit rating and we wouldn’t be in the position we are now in. But that race took a lot out of him, so he needed his next race and was then unlucky in his following start.” Following that, he didn’t have much luck in his tenth and eleventh starts from wide draws.

Anthony Delpech rode him for the first time in his eleventh start and if there was a turnaround with this horse it came due to something this experienced professional noticed next time out when winning his maiden aboard him over 2400m at Scottsville on July 20.

Gadsby said, “Anthony got off and said that at the top of the straight he felt that he had so much horse underneath him he would win by 20 lengths.” Royal Colours plugged on after hitting the front at the 300m mark to win comfortably by 2,25 lengths, but Delpech’s words struck a chord with Sean Cormack when Gadsby recounted them to him. It explains his tactics of waiting for as long as possible on Royal Colours before producing him.

Gadsby admitted that from the stands he always becomes a bundle of nerves when watching Cormack sitting still at the 300m mark. However, a combination of the top class jockey’s fine hands, his judgement and the tactics he has employed have certainly reaped dividends. Cormack’s record on Royal Colours is a perfect five out of five.

Gadsby concluded, “This horse really tries, he once had the reputation of being a brass, but that’s definitely not the case. The Bezrins do have to be entertained though, that’s why you will see Sean sitting patiently on him if he stops and looks at something on the way to the start. You have to be considerate to them.”

Gadsby still has to give Royal Colours his compulsory African Horse Sickness (AHS) vaccinations. However, he will try to get one more run into him in order that he can win Gold Circle’s Summer Challenge prize for gathering the most points before the Challenge finals in December. He won’t be able to run in the finals due to the necessity of doing the vaccinations, which usually puts a horse out of serious action for at least three weeks.

Both Bezanova and Royal Colours are chestnuts with white socks and it is fascinating to discover that a high percentage of Bezrin’s best sons are of similar colouring.

One of his recent most promising horses, Big City Angel, was a chestnut with white socks and the stake performers Thunderflash, All Ablaze, Tandragee, Briar King and Jimmi Choo are all chestnuts. In fact his bay male stake performers number only three, Celtic Fire, Benbow and Coy Boy.

The owner of Bezanova Chris Gerber joked in the winner’s enclosure on Saturday that former CEO of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association Tom Callaghan had told him during the 2012 National Two-Year-Old Sale that the sale was going well as “even the Bezrins were going for R150,000”, not knowing that Gerber had bought one of them himself, Bezanova!

Bezrin has gone backwards and forwards between KZN and the Cape a couple of times, but now stands at Spencer Cook’s Rock Stud in Paarl.

Picture: Royal Colours (Nkosi Hlophe)