Cot Campbell seemingly remains the real deal despite managing only sixth of nine when odds-on for his debut at Kenilworth on Saturday.
Greg Cheyne (Liesl King)
Chris Snaith warned this paper that the R3.3 million colt would need the run and he ambled out of the pens with about as much urgency as a pensioner going to the post office. In no time he was six lengths last and, although he made up the leeway, he was a spent force by the time he met with interference almost on the line. Even so he was less than three lengths off Pen-Chan, trained by Eric Sands for one-time Sporting Post columnist Rose Leheup.
“You can put a line through that,” said Jonathan Snaith. “This is a horse to follow and you can expect major improvement next time.”
Kingston Passage, on whom Greg Cheyne completed a double, was already in many punters’ notebooks even before making all in the Kieswetter brothers’ Whisky Baron colours in the 1 000m handicap.
“He is a sprinter with a hell of a lot of gate speed and he has his races won at halfway,” said Brett Crawford. “He will stay in Cape Town as the Durban programme doesn’t really suit sprinting three-year-olds.”
The recent Ramsden two-year-old dominance continues with Lily Theresa benefitting from Donovan Dillon’s subtle change of tactics (“I decided to put her behind something and it made all the difference”) to take the stable’s tally to 50% of the last 14 Cape Town juvenile races.
The stipes have instructed Riaan van Reenen to ensure that he continues to race Mistico’s Secret with blinkers after the almost formless filly served up a 16-1 shock under Grant van Niekerk in the Racing Association Maiden.
Van Reenan explained: “She developed a low-grade airwave disease and couldn’t finish her races. I managed to fix this problem but it was still in her mind so I put blinkers on her here and that worked.”
The Warm White Night filly is a half-sister to Gold Medallion winner Seventh Plain but, related the trainer, she is so small that he was able to buy her for Mike Wall for only R100 000.
Craig Bantam and his 4kg claim (worth four lengths over a mile) are becoming an increasingly valuable commodity and his all-the-way success on Benjan for Candice Bass-Robinson in the finale means that he has now had a winner at six of the last seven Kenilworth meetings.
There were some unusual starting prices returned on Saturday, notably on the Aldo Domeyer double – 72-10 for Call Me Darling and 61-10 for Step Out. Nobody seemed to know why.
‘Now wait for the rain’ was the message from Vaughan Marshall after MJ Byleveld led over 100m out for a convincing win on the Truters’ Tiger Warrior in the mile handicap. “He will be much better when there is a cut in the ground – and I’m sure he will win again,” said the Milnerton trainer.
By Michael Clower
