Christmas came early for the Van Zyl clan over the weekend with father Gavin saddling a three-timer and son Gareth chipping in with a double at Scottsville yesterday.
Path To Glory was a popular winner to get the ball rolling for Van Zyl senior at Greyville, who followed up with Princess Analia in the eighth under replacement rider Brandon Lerena deputising for Warren Kennedy who took a horrendous fall in the previous race.
Gavin Van Zyl
Out My Way clipped heels and came down heavily rolling over Kennedy who already has a metal plate in his face, the aftermath of a crashing fall in Port Elizabeth some years back.
According to Van Zyl, Kennedy was out of hospital yesterday and cuts and bruises apart, he was in good spirits although he will be side-lined for a few weeks.
Van Zyl rounded off his weekend treble as the three-year-old Just Vogue continues to show improvement and put a useful field to the sword in an Allowance Plate with the luckless Miss Varlicious back in second.
Van Zyl Jnr-trained Budapest, without a win since his surprise end-to-end victory in the Lanzerac Ready to Run two seasons’ back, finally got his act together in yesterday’s Pinnacle Stakes, showing a commanding turn of foot to put his race to bed in a matter of strides.
A horse with plenty of talent, he aversion to the stating stalls have been a headache for his connections but the fitting of pacifiers for his races appear to have calmed him down and his last three races have been without major incident.
“He’s always been a horse with talent but his own worst enemy,” Van Zyl said. “He can turn it on when he wants to. Going through the 400 it was a case of would he turn it on or not.” He did and replacement rider Alec Forbes did the rest.
Duncan Howells endured a weekend of mixed fortunes. Night At The Proms finally put his maiden behind him on Friday night and Madam Excess in spite of being “three-quarters done” had enough in hand to come back strongly to edge out Florrick in yesterday’s card opener.
Disappointment of the weekend was Dawn Calling in the World Sports Betting Cape Fillies Guineas. Piere Strydom, battling a slipped saddle on Final Judgement, was all over the track and Dawn Calling never got to finish her race. “It was a long way to go to have it end like that,” concluded a frustrated Howells.
By Andrew Harrison
