Andre Nel had a welcome respite from his virus nightmare when Love To Boogie got up close home under Aldo Domeyer to land the TAB Telebet Handicap at Durbanville’s twilight meeting on Saturday.
The time was only 0.22 seconds outside Empress Club’s 1992 course record and, although this was winner number 24 of the season for Nel, he might well have been sitting on twice as many had it not been for the sickness.
Aldo Domeyer
He said: “Love To Boogie hasn’t had it but 25 out of the 60 of them have and we had one more this morning. However none of the youngsters has gone down with it and we don’t know whether it is viral or parasital so we are still in the dark.”
So were punters after 15-10 favourite Kingston Passage trailed in sixth of the seven runners after looking beaten early in the straight. “He over-raced and never left Greg Cheyne alone,” explained Brett Crawford. “It is back to the drawing board with him.”
The Philippi trainer, and the yard’s many supporters, had some compensation when 26-10 chance Gimmie A Cohiba got up in the closing stages under Corne Orffer in the last. Crawford had flagged this one when interviewed on Tellytrack earlier in the afternoon.
Domeyer, who also scored on So It Begins for Candice Bass-Robinson, is third on the national log with 69 winners but remains a 20-1 outsider for the title.
Justin Snaith drew a blank with his only two runners but Fifty Cents’ victory at Fairview on Friday saw him achieve his century for the 14th successive season. He is more than R6 million clear of triple champion Sean Tarry on the national log.
Billy Prestage is having a fair bit of success with his front-running tactics and 15-1 chance Desert Lark added to the tally when leading throughout the final circuit of the Play Soccer 6 Handicap.
Prestage said: “This horse is a bit one-paced but I knew that he was very fit. The last time he ran the guy (Sihle Cele) waited for the others to come and catch him before he started riding so I told Anthony Andrews to be sure to keep him going.”
Basil Marcus stood in for younger son Adam (away on holiday) and celebrated the 35th birthday of elder son Glenn (the Phumelela computer guru) with a double from Jeovana and Amazingly. The former was ridden by Richard Fourie who also scored two for Glen Kotzen.
By Michael Clower
