Rainbow Bridge paid tribute to the late Chris Gerber in the only way he could by producing his devastating trademark turn of foot to extend his unbeaten record to five in the Cape Mile at Kenilworth yesterday.

But he did it the hard way, turning the preliminaries – and indeed the whole time since he left his Milnerton stable – into nervous, sweating and energy-sapping anxiety. Eric Sands, amazingly now almost accustomed to this alarming behaviour, repeatedly threw buckets of water over him to cool him down.

But in the parade ring the favourite jig-jogged round in a manner that had the bookmakers rubbing their hands in glee. They lengthened him from 10-15 to 16-10 in a bid to get in as much money as they could.

Bernard Fayd’Herbe deliberately took the horse much further down the course than any of the others in the parade and by the time he reached the start a lot of the nerves had dissipated into the atmosphere.

“I wasn’t too concerned,” he reported afterwards. “The most important thing for me was to get him relaxed and enjoying the race. Indeed he was travelling so well that when we turned into the straight I was looking to put on the handbrake.”

Instead he pressed the accelerator. Not even Lewis Hamilton could have got a better response. The four-year-old slipped into another gear and 150m from home he was in front. The length and three-quarter margin over second-placed Silver Maple does little justice to the ease of victory.

Eric Sands said: “The sweat was dripping off him when we got here but he is better than he was and, as he settles, he shows more and more of his ability. He runs in the Green Point next.”

But the trainer was so overcome that he was having to fight back the tears as he was interviewed by Stan Elley. “It’s Chris’s death and also Rainbow Bridge’s groom who committed suicide a month ago,” he explained.

So just how good is the Ideal World four-year-old? “As good as they get,” was Fayd’Herbe’s unhesitating reply and he has ridden more top horses than most of us have had holidays.

But that nervous sweating hangs over the bay’s future like a threatening cloud. He might get away with it in races like this but the Queen’s Plate and the Met are a different matter. No matter how good you are, you cannot afford to burn up lengths beforehand. Sands’ task is going to be as difficult as anything he has faced in his long career.

Those who can hardly wait to take him on in the Grade 1s include Glen Kotzen and Hugo Hattingh whose Eyes Wide Open gave weight all round and finished an encouraging fifth. “We were delighted,” said the Woodhill trainer. “He’d been off for months. Now it’s the Green Point, Queen’s Plate and the Met which is his real target.”

Dennis Drier and Sean Veale won last year’s Laisserfaire with Sommerlied and this time Anime – backed from 16-1 to 9-1- made much of the running to repeat the performance.

Significantly Veale said: “I am hoping to have some fun this season because we have brought down some nice horses.”

Candice Bass-Robinson ran three in the Woolavington Handicap and they took the first three places. But, sadly for punters, it was the outsider of the party who won with 31-4 shot Benjan leading over a furlong out to give Sandile Mbhele his first feature.

By Michael Clower