David Thiselton
Durban-based owner Rikesh Sewgoolam prefers to watch his horses running from home and did so as usual on Saturday for the L’Ormarins King’s Plate, which was won by his superstar Vaughan Marshall-trained colt One Stripe.
He admitted to being nervous before every race and to being pessimistic about the 11/10 favourite’s chances when he turned for home with a lot of ground to make up on the leaders.
He said, “Gavin’s plan was to race him forward this time and probably sit third or fourth, considering he had a goodish draw of five, but things never worked out from the jump. Unfortunately, for the first time he missed the break and all the plans fell out the window. He had to do it the hard way and turning for home I really didn’t believe he would be able to get to them, especially when he went past the 400m mark and had so many horses in front of him and with that horse of Piet Botha’s (Montien) going so well and Gimme A Prince travelling so well on the inside rail.”
Out on the track the jockey had a completely different perspective.
Riskesh revealed, “Gavin was full of confidence. When I chatted to him on Saturday night he said he turned into the straight and balanced him and he knew at the 500m mark he was going to win. It was just a matter of getting a clear passage, he could feel there was so much there. But unfortunately with us watching on television it looked totally different!”
Lerena rode with the hands all the way to the 200m mark and then when giving him a slap with the whip, One Stripe took off. He burst through between Montien and Gimme A Prince to win by a cosy 1,75 lengths.
Rikesh said, “He was so brave, he took that gap … for a young horse to take that gap. It was pretty tight when you look at the head on, tighter than what it looked like from the side on.”
One Stripe had thus become only the third horse to have won both the Cape Guineas and the King’s Plate in the same season, with the great David Payne-trained In Full Flight having been the last to do it in 1972.
One Stripe’s entry in to the King’s Plate was actually an after thought.
Rikesh revealed, “The King’s Plate was not on his agenda in the beginning. We always had the task of trying to achieve the Guineas, which thankfully we did, and it was on Gavin Lerena’s recommendation that the horse should go for the King’s Plate. We were guided by Gavin and I was guided by Vaughan as well. He took his run in the Guineas pretty well, so we decided to have a go, even though everything was not in his favour. But it worked out in the end.”
One Stripe became just the third three-year-old in the last 50 years to have won the King’s Plate.
When Yataghan did it in 1973 he was the third three-year-old in the space of four years to have done it, following Chichester in 1970 and In Full Flight in 1972. However, the conditions back then appeared to be different because despite the race then being run a month and-a-half later in mid February, In Full Flight and Yataghan both received 7kg from the top weighted older males, while Chichester, when the race was run on New Year’s Day, received 7,5kg from the top weighted older male.
One Stripe only received 5kg from the older horses on Saturday in the race which is today run under weight for age conditions.
Riskesh bought One Stripe from the original owner Grant Knowles prior to the CRS Ready To Run Sale. Knowles had bought him off a BSA Sale for just R100,000.
Rikesh left One Stripe on the Sale in order to qualify for all the Ready To Run races and incentives etc.
Then immediately after the breeze up gallop prior to the Ready To Run Sale Vaughan Marshall, who was going to be the trainer for One Stripe, phoned Rikesh.
Rikesh said, “He said to me ‘You can’t let this horse go, his gallop was probably the best breeze up I’ve ever seen.’ I agreed, not expecting to be challenged in the way we were. We thought he would probably go for around R400,000 or so!”
Rikesh had to go to R1,4 million to keep him.
Later Winterbach Stud put One Stripe’s Silvano dam Silver Stripe up for Sale in foal to One World about a month after One Stripe had made his debut, ironically on L’Ormarins King’s Plate day last year, where he finished a close up fifth in a strong field. Rikesh wasted no time in securing her and is now looking forward to the career of the weanling full sister, not to mention the progeny of Silver Stripe to follow.
One Stripe’s next mission is the big Sales race, the R5 million Big Cap to be run over 1400m on March 16 at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth.
