Andrew Harrison
CAPTAIN FONTANE had garnered a reputation before he even set foot on a racetrack and he gave credence to those views with a smashing victory in the last at Hollywoodbets Greyville today.
A comfortable winner on debut, that form was rubber-stamped when runner up Hail Columbia hacked up at Hollywoodbets Scottsville last Sunday.
Today’s performance was something out of the top drawer as Garth Puller’s charge spread-eagled the opposition, putting five lengths of daylight between them.
Missing the kick, Lyle Hewitson managed to slot him in on the rail and hold his position. But once off the false rail, Captain Fontane extended like a really good horse to win as he liked.
A pricey yearling purchase, Captain Fontane is owned by Hong Kong-based trainer David Ferraris and his partner C.W. Hui. With Hewitson having completed an extended if fruitless spell in Hong Kong, he will be in a position to give Ferraris valuable feedback and the green light for the Far East may well be flickering.
There are few riders that can get a horse out of the gate quicker than the rest. Anton Marcus is a past master and anything drawn wide that prefers to race handy and is on the rail before the opposition has woken up to the fact that they are in a race.
The Ghan may have, in the end, have proven to be a touch superior to his rivals as Marcus made plenty of early use of him, giving him a breather up the hill before skating away to win the second.
The race was the second leg of a double for the rider and Brett Crawford’s assistant Peter Muscutt as Marcus had employed similar tactics in the card opener as he catapulted odds-on favourite Deep Thought out of the gate and was never there for the catching.
That was two favourites home before the wheels came off as far as many punters were concerned.
Aquae Sulis, second at her penultimate start but never sighted last time up, started the rot as she got home comfortably for Mike Miller with Ashton Arries breaking an extended drought.
Born To Perform was the next favourite to bite the dust and was never in the hunt as Hexatonic and champion jockey Warren Kennedy got the better Special Blend inside the last 50m.
Hexatonic and Aquae Sulis (R42 on the tote) both returned 14-1 on the books.
One can count on one hand horses that have made it past 100 visits to the track in the past two decades, but at nine years old Putchini is still playing the right tune as he notched his 11th success from 112 starts. Ivan van Wyk has never been shy to run his charge who at times has run twice a month for six months in succession, testimony the geldings iron constitution.
