Andrew Harrison
Hollywoodbets Scottsville patrons were treated to a brilliant display of jockeyship and courageous horses on Saturday with all nine races highly contested, none more so than the Gr1 SA Fillies Sprint Brough to you by The Witness and Gr1 Gold Medallion, the headline features on the day.
Close finishes are what always what get the pulse racing but when two top class horses go head-to-head it takes the heart beat a few beats higher and that is what patrons got in the Gr1 Gold Medallion.
Rich Man’s World had shown that he was a horse to be reckoned with when disposing of the highly rated Master Magician at his last start and Haute Couture was still an unknown even after demolishing his maiden field on debut just two weeks back.
Both horses jumped well and it was clear a long way out that it was going to be a match race. Callan Murray sat Haute Couture in behind Richard Fourie on Rich Man’s Gold with the balance of the field not in the race.
From there on it was a case of who was going to blink first, Fourie or Murray. Leaving the 400m lollipop behind Murray’s arms were the first to push but Fourie was wise to the move and over the final 200m it was anyone’s race with two smart colts giving it their best with Haute Couture just out-lasting Rich Man’s Gold.
Murray said post-race, “When Richard’s horse was a bit keen I thought that I would just take a seat off him. My horse is very tractable. That’s going to help him a lot going forward, switch him off and turn him on whenever I need him to. Today he turned on when I asked him and put a really good field to bed.”
“Today we saw two fantastic horses,” said winning trainer Mathew de Kock. “We hope to see them against each other in the future.”
If the Medallion was a tactical battle, the Gr1 SA Fillies Sprint Brough to you by the Witness was a scrambled egg for the two main contenders, Asiye Phambili and Double Grand Slam.
The pair were in all sorts of trouble 400 m out, both faced with a wall of traffic as the field concertinaed up the inside rail. Asiye Phambili was under big pressure through the halfway mark with Sean Veale hard at work chasing Double Grand Slam who looked to have got the drop on Duncan Howells’s mare. Veale then switched his mount out into daylight and Asiye Phambili responded with a sustained finish. Andrew Fortune had his own troubles finding a passage and eventually shifted in dramatically to find a gap. When it opened, Double Grand Slam quickened through and the race boiled down to a 200m battle with two great mares fighting it out and the balance watching.
There was a head separating them at the line but Asiye Phambili went one better than she did last year and a well-deserved Gr1 victory and Sean Veale finally vindicated.
The Gr2 Golden Horse Sprint was always going to be a dogfight and so it proved as the majority of the 16-horse field finished within three lengths of the winner Taxi To The Moon in a thrilling spectacle.
Tony Peter’s gelding had shown his best recent form over 1000m and there were doubts about whether he would see out the extra furlong in tough company.
Given Tristan Godden’s pre-race instructions, the stable were never any doubt that Taxi To The Moon would see out the trip and although it was a close-run thing at the finish the gelding poked his nose in front when it mattered. He edged out Café Culture and favourite One Eye On Vegas with reserve runner Kaalvoet finishing strongly for the shallow end of the purse.
It was something of a chance mount for Godden who had to hunt around for a ride but he is riding with great confidence since his win in the Gr1 Betway Summer Cup and so it proved.
Instructions were to have his mount in the vanguard. “At the 600 I let him find himself, give him a bit of a breather and he quickened up very well.”
Dennis Drier was once regarded as the ‘King of Scottsville’ but Sean Tarry has since taken over the mantle. The Allan Robertson Fillies Championship was always in the past a Gr1 race before being down-graded to Gr2 an Tarry was denied his 22nd Gr1 at the Hollywoodbets Scottsville track as Get Up simply destroyed a smart field under Gavin Lerena.
Always in the vanguard, Lerna said, “It was just about getting her into a rhythm and she is so natural. She really enjoyed it out there and I just hung onto her as long as I could, as I always thought that I had a very good filly under me. She’s won a very good race.”
Tarry was looking for a crack at the colts in the Gr1 Gold Medallion. “ I was looking to see where she would fit in as this was a Gr1 and this is no longer a Gr1. It’s heart breaking. These are proper races that have been down-graded. We were going for the Gr1 but at the last minute Kevin (Somerville, Drakenstein’s racing manager) said hang on, let’s go for the Gr2,” that in hindsight was probably the best move given the results.
