David Thiselton
Mickaelle Michel ended a fairy-tale tour to South Africa on a high note at the World Pool Gold Cup meeting at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Sunday when landing the Gr 2 World Pool Bet With Tote Umkhomazi Stakes over 1200m on the James Crawford-trained Fish Tales, who fittingly races in the famous colours of Tony Moodley.
Fish Tales, who was bred by Ascot Stud and is by their underrated stallion Heavenly Blue, is now unbeaten in two starts.
His victory was all the more commendable in that he had to overcome a draw of 11 out of 13 runners.
Mickaelle took the athletic bay colt up to mid division and in expert fashion managed to slot him into a one wide position with cover before he had used up too much energy.
The colt continually found after being switched out in the straight and hit the front at about the 150m mark before going on to win by 1,10 lengths.
Fish Tales’ red and yellow checks, emerald sleeves and cap colours were carried to Summer Cup victory by the Mike de Kock-trained Rudra in 2006 and earlier that same year were carried to Gr 1 Champions Cup glory by Equal Image. Many other good horses have carried the colours.
Tony races in partnership with his son Nishen and the other owners in Fish Tales are Raphael Goolam and Selvan Naidoo. Fish Tales is in fact the first horse Raphael has ever owned.
Nishen said after the win, “My Dad has been involved in horseracing for the longest of time. He has never left the sport. We did go a little bit quiet, I think horseracing is a wheel, you will be at the top one day and be at the bottom again and now we are slowly rising to the top again.”
He said about the purchase of Fish Tales, “When we saw him at the August two-year-old Sale last year we absolutely fell in love with him. He is by Heavenly Blue, who I think is overlooked, he is such an underrated sire, and he is one of the better Heavenly Blues that we’ve seen. Myself and some friends decided to get involved and here we are today.”
Ashley Parker of Ascot Stud was alerted many years back to the fact that Fish Tales’ dam Caviar was for sale and he snapped her up.
The Var mare was trained by the late Colin Scott and won five times over distances from 1000m to 1400m.
The Australian-bred Heavenly Blue, who is by the iconic four-times Australian Champion Sire Snitzel, won the Gr 1 SA Classic over 1800m and he was third in the Gr 1 SA Derby.
Fish Tales, who has plenty of substance, ran like a horse who would enjoy further.
James Crawford said they would have preferred to have come into the race with one more run under the belt and he added, “He is still green and immature and once the penny drops we’ve got a lot more fun to have.”
Fish Tales is an exciting classic prospect.
He is a half-brother to the useful King Prawn, an Alan Greeff-trained three-year-old gelding whose two wins include the Listed Champion Juvenile Cup over 1400m, although he has had a somewhat disappointing three-year-old season.
Fish Tales was bought for R375,000.
At this year’s National Yearling Sale his full-brother was bought for R200,000 by Jaap van de Vendel and will be trained by Alan Greeff.
Caviar is currently in foal to the Mauritzfontein-based sire Digital Age, a Gr 1-winning son of Invincible Spirit..
Caviar’s third dam is the Champion Broodmare Soho Secret, which means she is from the family of the good racehorse and influential matriarch Secret Pact.
Caviar has had six runners for four winners and Fish Tales is her second stakes winner.
Fish Tales won by 2,30 length on debut over 1160m on June 7 and now that he has confirmed that promise he is definitely one to follow.
Meanwhile, Mickaelle Michel will be back in South Africa in October.
Before departing the racecourse on Sunday she was presented with a framed enlargement of a Sporting Post front page headline commemorating the day she made history on Star Major in the Daily News 2000, becoming only the second woman in South African history to win a Gr 1 event.
Her 47 wins on this tour were achieved at a strike rate of 9.2% and included one Gr 1 and three Gr 2s.
