David Thiselton
The Jackpot of Graded features at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Saturday culminated in six-year-old Asiye Phambili becoming the most deserved Gr 1 winner for the last season or two under an outstanding ride by Sean Veale in the SA Fillies Sprint.
It was an emotional moment all round for Veale, the Hollywood Racing team and for trainer Duncan Howells when the slow motion replay showed that the 2/1 chance Asiye Phambili had prevailed by an official margin of a neck over the 18/10 favourite Double Grand Slam.
Howells is not known for outward displays of emotion and said in an interview on Sunday, “It is the closest a horse has ever brought me to tears. It was a race I really wanted to win and it was chiefly for the horse’s sake. I felt it was the best highlight of my training career, it was really very, very special.”
The strong but athletically built What A Winter filly actively looked proud of herself after the race as she trotted back to her groom.
She stood for a moment with head raised majestically, ears pricked and surveyed her surrounds. After a number of near misses she was finally able to say, “I am the Champ.”
Duncan continued, “She is a lovely filly and is one of those horses that grows on you.”
Sean Veale was emotional afterwards too and thanked Hollywood Racing’s racing manager Anthony Delpech for “having his back” as the choice of jockey.
Gavin Lerena is the other chief Hollywood Racing jockey and had ridden Asiye Phambili in her last start in Cape Town in the Diadem. He was on the injury list when Asiye Phambili had her first start of this season’s Champions Season in the traditional SA Fillies Sprint pointer race, the Gr 3 Poinsettia Stakes over the same Hollywoodbets Scottsville 1200m course and distance, a race in which she put in one of her most impressive career performances, running out a 3,70 length winner under Veale.
It would not have been an easy choice for Delpech. considering Lerena is a twice SA Champion Jockey and is the reigning Champion.
Delpech opted to keep Veale aboard and Howells knew he had made the right decision.
He said, “I wouldn’t have thought it fair to put on a jockey who had only ridden her once. He had to have somebody on the horse who knew the horse, it wasn’t a debate about the expertise of riders. Sean Veale knew the horse backwards. You can’t change that and you may never get another chance of winning a race like this. Sometimes it could work against you, but I felt in this situation it would work in her favour.”
Veale paid back the faith shown in him with the ride of the season.
Pre-race planning goes into any race and with this Gr 1 being viewed as a two horse race between Double Grand Slam and Asiye Phambili it could be predicted that it might boil down to the tactics employed by the two jockeys involved, Andrew Fortune and Sean Veale respectively.
In Hollywoodbets Scottsville’s big sprint races the horses tend to drift from the outside draws inward and this creates traffic problems for horses coming from off the pace from inside positions.
With Fortune drawn ten and Veale eight it was predictable that Fortune would sit on the outside of Veale and box Asiye Phambili in … and that is exactly what he did.
However, Veale responded superbly to the situation even if it initially looked like the filly was in trouble as she ended up further back than she would have liked.
He dropped Asiye Phambili behind Double Grand Slam and with the pace on in the race he began driving her to build up momentum for an early move.
Meanwhile, Fortune’s tactic did have its consequences because Princess Of Gaul came from a wide draw and sat on his outside, forcing him to check slightly before diving for a gap all the way to the inside.
Michael Roberts, South Africa’s only Hall Of Fame jockey was known for his tactical superiority and he based it all on doing what the other jockeys had least expected.
Veale then delivered his trump card.
He switched to the outside of Princess Of Gaul and began charging for the line just after the 400m mark, plotting a straight course to the line, an unexpected move considering the best going had appeared, from previous races on the day, to be on the inside.
Meanwhile, Fortune had burst clear on the inside rail and it would be reasonable to assume he believed Asiye Phambili to be buried somewhere back in the scrum. He must have been shocked to see her surging up to him wide out in the centre.
Asiye Phambili did begin hanging towards her rival, as is natural for a racehorse, but she had momentum on her side.
They flashed past the line together just a couple of metres apart.
Howells thought she had been beaten.
He said, “Last year I thought she had got beat but thought we had a squeak of winning it. This year I genuinely thought she had got beat.”
Duncan was over the moon when the slow motion replay confirmed she had clearly won, although the official margin of a neck is surprising … it looked closer even in the slow motion replay.
Duncan reflected on the moment two years ago when the preparation had gone just as perfectly as it had this year only for the jockey Rachel Venniker to be dislodged at the start after Asiye Phambili had pecked badly.
He said whilst he did not think she was better today than back then he believed her to be tougher.
“She is a very hardy filly, she’s been going flat out for three years and traveling up and down and she’s never let us down. She has been a bit of a miracle horse.”
Duncan revealed the key to preparing an older mare like her, “Older horses sometimes maintain their fitness better than younger horses because they have been through the mill before and often, as is the case with her, you have to keep them fresh to maintain their attitude.”
Duncan had bumped into Andrew Fortune in Checkers on Friday night and there was a bit of banter.
On Sunday he magnanimously praised Fortune for a fine tactical ride, but was outwardly proud of the hard-working Veale for delivering the stable its ninth Gr 1 victory.
