David Thiselton

History repeated itself when the Mark Dixon-trained Shell Seeker won on debut over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday in impressive style.

The Master Of My Fate filly was backed in from 25/4 to 10/3 second favourite in the Maiden Plate for fillies and mares.

Some of her supporters might have groaned when she lost a length or two at the start. However, this allowed jockey Keagan de Melo to choose a position where she could run on her own with daylight in front of her. He thus took her towards the inside. It is invariably best to have cover in any race, but when the connections are ultra confident with a potentially green first-timer, allowing her ample room is a sound strategy. So that move might have given an indication of just how confident they were. She was soon contesting the lead. The fancied Leopard Lady moved up threateningly at the 400m mark and hanging inward she came together with Shell Seeker, who had hung outward, at the 250m mark. However, Shell Seeker, despite having to make up the lost ground at the start, proved to still be cruising. She galloped clear effortlessly to win easing up by 4,30 lengths.

Dixon found the good looking filly at the BSA National Two-year-old Sale last year.

Breeder James Armitage of Sandown Stud liked her going into the sale and said, “It’s a commercial world we live in so although she had a very nice pedigree further down the page (she is related to the like of Hernando, the joint highest rated older horse in Europe in 1994), owners and breeders want to see a lot of black type close up.”

He elaborated by saying sales patrons would not have taken heed of any excuses, even the valid one which pertained to Shell Seeker’s now retired dam Witsand, who had a lot of bad luck in her career. For example her previous foal Tiger In The Sun (Where’s That Tiger) had finished third in two Listed races and was showing a lot of promise before “doing a tendon”.

Armitage concluded, “Shell Seeker looks to be a very exciting prospect and I would love to have still had her dam on the farm!”

Dixon’s first impressions of Shell Seeker were positive and he said, “She was beautifully good looking and was very well balanced. She had a beautiful head with a massive eye and was by a proven stallion.”

She went through the ring late in the sale as lot 389 out of 394. Dixon had tried to buy a few before her without success and upon leaving for the airport left instructions with former trainer and now BSA staff member Alistair Gordon to bid for Shell Seeker on his behalf.

Dixon was at the airport when he received a phonecall from Gordon informing him he had secured the filly for R130,000.

This was a little bit of deja vu.

In 2012 one of Dixon’s most loyal clients Clint Larsson had earmarked a Kahal colt in the catalogue of the National Yearling Sales. However, Dixon, with a limited amount left in his budget, felt he had zero chance of securing him. After all, he was a half-brother to Grade 1 Cape Fillies Guineas-winner Indiscreet Fantasy and to Listed-winner Silver Fantasy. So he left for the airport but upon landing in Durban he received a phonecall from Larsson, who was in London at the time. The latter had noticed on the internet the colt had gone through the ring unsold. Dixon immediately phoned vendor Bruce le Roux and made an offer. He managed to secure him for R120,000. The connections were everlastingly  grateful to Le Roux for standing by his word as another offer was apparently made five minutes later.

The connections fittingly decided to name the colt London Call and he not only won on debut by 5,50 lengths at odds of 33/1 but went on to win eleven races in total, including the Non-Black Type Marula Sprint twice, and he also finished second in the KZN Breeders Million Mile and fourth in the Grade 1 Mercury Sprint.

Dixon said Shell Seeker’s “magnificent, big action” was evident from day one. He took his time with her as Master Of My Fate’s can have slightly hot tempers and she was telling him she was not yet ready. He said she was lightly framed so still had plenty of filling out to do. She thus has plenty of scope for improvement and he believed she would stay further too.

Dixon is particularly pleased she has such “great owners”, who include Larsson as well as another of his most loyal patrons, Bruce Lin, and also Mike Liontarides.

Time will tell whether she has classic potential but the connections have plenty to look forward to with this promising filly.

Dixon might think about stationing himself at the airport for future sales.

David Thiselton

VETERAN TRAINER ROY MAGNER won the Spring Spree Stakes two years ago with the five-year-old gelding Prince Of Kahal and repeated the feat at Turffontein Inside on Saturday with another five-year-old gelding Vaseem.

The race was a Grade 3 in 2019 but has been downgraded to a Listed event.

However, Magner is hoping the Klawervlei Stud-bred Vaseem can follow in the footsteps of the Clifton Stud-bred Prince Of Kahal as the latter went on to record a feature race hattrick in 2019 by winning the Grade 2 Joburg Spring Challenge over 1450m and the Listed Golden Loom Handicap over 1000m in his next two starts.

Both Prince Of Kahal and Vaseem are testimony to Magner’s training skills as it is not easy to get progression out of a five-year-old. 

Vaseem in fact recorded a hattrick of victories on Saturday having finished second and third in his first two starts for the Magner yard.

Magner spotted Vaseem on a BSA Online auction and told Durban owner Andre van Bassen they “had to get him.”

Vaseem was secured for R90,000 and Andre and his attorney daughter Teegan are now the joint-owners.

Magner was first attracted to Vaseem because he is by the boom sire Vercingetorix.

Magner was trainer of the Robert Chung-owned Vercingetorix colt One Way Or Another who annihilated the useful Flying Carpet by 5,75 lengths on debut over 1200m on October 1 last year with the rest of the field beaten 10,25 lengths and more. One Way Or Another is currently in England, one of the legs of his long and laborious journey to race for Chung in his home country of Hong Kong.

Magner continued, “Vaseem had some very good early form but obviously had a few niggles, so I thought we could take him on as a challenge to get him back on the winning trail. The thinking was he was from the yard of a very good trainer, but in such a big yard a horse can occasionally fall through the cracks. It has turned out well.”

Vaseem’s last three runs before the sale saw him beaten a combined total of 24.5 lengths but Magner got to work on the few “little niggles” he found and the horse has turned the corner in no uncertain terms. 

Magner is eyeing more features and said, “As long as his merit rating does not go too high there are some nice races for him.”

Muzi Yeni was aboard Vaseem on Saturday and his regard for former Zimbabwean champion trainers must have gone up yet another notch.

Yeni had a memorable partnership last season with War Of Athena, trained by three-times Zimbabwe champion trainer Paul Matchett.

Magner was also a three-time Zimbabwe champion trainer.

Yeni rousted Vaseem out of the stalls from a draw of eight out of eight in Saturday’s 1200m event around the turn on the tight track. A gap fortuitously opened behind the two early leaders Mr Flood and Chief Of State and he found himself on the rail just past the 1000m mark. Yeni got to work coming off the false rail at the 500m mark and Vaseem responded superbly to overtake Mr Flood by the 300m mark. The leader at that stage was Visiway, who began to fade, and Vaseem then just needed to keep Mr Flood at bay, which he did gallantly to win by 0,70 lengths. It was a good run by the runner up who off a 119 merit rating had to give 100 rated Vaseem 9.5kg.

Vaseem’s merit rating has gone up five points as he beat the line horse Visiway by 2,10 lengths.

David Thiselton 

TRAINERS AND OWNERS as well as jockeys are ultimately responsible for reversing the myth that the Hollywoodbets Greyville polytrack has a bias towards the outside rail, which might have once possibly been true but is no longer the case thanks to the efforts made by chief track manager Kurt Grunewald and his team.

There was a period when the Hollywoodbets Scottsville straight course was known for it’s noticeable bias towards the inside but the turning point came when connections were no longer convinced that it was the better going and today jockeys do not feel compelled to dive for the inside path and thus exacerbate the problem by creating a worn path.  

Grunewald said having a spur in the past had not helped matters on the polytrack and elaborated, “It is such a tight corner the spur forced them to the outside.” 

The spur has been done way with.

Another change, in order to eliminate an argument that one harrowing machine is possibly heavier than another and is causing a bias, is the harrowing machines switch positions everytime they go on to the track i.e. from the inside to the outside or to the centre and this is done both when preparing for a meeting and when smoothing it out during a racemeeting.

A related accusation has been a light vehicle on the track when false rails are put up is causing a bias but there is no logic in this as ten times heavier harrowing machines and watering machines will soon follow its appearance. 

The company which were consulted when the polytrack was first laid advised that levelling the track by hand should be done once every six months. This is to eliminate such happenings as loose material, pushed out by the machines, drifting and accumulating. Hand levelling is a time consuming task as 2000m of track have to be covered but the team have recently changed the time gap for this task from six months to four weeks and aim to keep up that rate.  

The cooler a polytrack the tighter it is so there will be more kickback on hotter days. Therefore it makes sense for those coming from behind to switch to the outside or inside in the straight to avoid the kickback. However, this has nothing to do with better going. It is unnecessary for those in the front to drift outward and it arguably constitutes unfair riding.   

Watering during meetings is done in order to keep the track cool and thus limit kickback and with the limited time available the heavy watering machine is driven on the inside around the turn, because that is where the horses race, and is driven down the centre of the straight.  On the morning of a meeting the water truck will go successively on three positions down the straight, for example  outside, centre and inside. The harrowing machines will follow.

Grunewald told the story of how when the track was first laid ten ton trucks laden with material were on the track but the heel of a shoe could still be pushed into the surface which showed just how little impact such heavy trucks have on the give in the surface.    

An analysis of the last polytrack meeting at Hollywoodbets Greyville showed that horses were able to win from anywhere, yet the belief the outside was the place to be unfairly cost at least one horse a possible win and those who backed this horse would have felt hard done by. 

The first race was won by a horse who drifted towards the outside.  

The next was on  by a horse who skipped clear before drifting to the middle outside.  

In race three Space Oddity made her run down the centre to beat Port Adelaide just inside of her by 0,40 lengths. 

In race four You Deserve drifted to the outside from the centre to win by half-a-length from Top Me Up Holly who drifted to the outside rail. Third-placed Flying First Class could well have won but after switching to the outside with ample room in front of her she found her run blocked by the overall effect of three horses drifting towards the outside rail. 

Origami and Arrow’s Mark quickly proved it was unnecessary to go to the outside and finished first and second in the next race sticking to the inside rail in the straight. 

In the next race the winner Let’s Not Linger ran down the centre and fended off Hot Money who had the so-called dream run on the “golden highway” on the outside. Both horses started at exactly the same 25/3 odds.

In the next race Birdwatcher switched outward at the top of the straight for a run and running down the middle/outside fended off the horse on the outside. 

In the last race Running Freely made his run on the inside portion of the track beating a horse who was inside of him. 

Andrew Harrison

It has been over a year since Tempting Fate won the Gr1 Gold Medallion at Hollywoodbets Scottsville but a trip to Cape Town, five races later and an operation to sort out a breathing problem, saw Dennis Drier’s charge back in top form at the same venue yesterday.

An issue that ostensibly started in Cape Town, saw Tempting Fate struggling to breath because of an entrapped epiglottis. But Drier was lavish in his praise of some delicate surgery by vets Johnny Cave and Manfred Rower that appears to have been successful as Tempting Fate landed the race and the money.

It was a competitive handicap sprint and Light The Loose gave plenty of cheek, but Tempting Fate put it all together and won well enough to suggest that he still has plenty to offer.

Pray For Rain, second to Tempting Fate in the Gold Medallion, was a winner last time out but after showing early pace, trailed in last. 

For TAB punters, the meeting got off to a rocky start. According to a terse e-mail, the TAB pools for the first race failed to close on time and some bets were struck after the race had been run. TAB payouts were suspended immediately.

After a lengthy delay, it was later announced on course that all TAB bets were to be refunded and the race, for TAB purposes, was declared null and void and all bets struck to be refunded.

However, the result of the race does stand. A spokesman for bookmakers Hollywoodbets said that as an official result was declared, they would be paying winning fixed odds bets.

The stipendiary board  have launched an inquiry into the incident.

October Song put the record straight when getting the better of a duel with Lucky Miss in the fourth. On debut, Mike Miller’s charge was rumoured ‘unbeatable’ but a lack of racing experience cost her dearly as she went under to the Gary Rich-trained Kitten’s Adventure.

Serino Moodley had things a little easier this time around although he had to survive a race revue as he crossed Lucky Miss late with Muzi Yeni having to ease off her heels.

These two were many lengths clear of the opposition  and both should pay dividends in the future.

Hasta Manana finally got his act together when winning the fifth for Gareth van Zyl. Stable supporters took time to get off the mark as the well fancied Drive By came under pressure early in the card opener and failed to get in a blow as the Mark Dixon-trained Shell Seeker, who came in for a ton of late money, landed the gamble in emphatic fashion and looks to be one for the notebook.

Indigo Fields was next up for the stable, also starting at cramped odds, but backing first timers again showed that it can be a tricky business as the more experienced and progressive Sting Ray and  Queen Mercury proved more than a match for a filly that was all at sea when it counted.

Is there rain on the way?

Andrew Harrison

Even a multiple KZN champion trainer can hit a dry spell. Retirees, horses going off form and recent intakes proving thin on ability are the fate of many yards but the best always soldier on through the troughs. Dennis Drier has had a spell in the doldrums, but the stable is showing encouraging signs of a return to form and Drier holds a strong hand in the Pinnacles Stakes that heads the Hollywoodbets Scottsville card on Sunday.

He saddles Pray For Rain and Tempting Fate, second and first respectively in the Gr1 Gold Medallion two season’s back. Pray For Rain squeaked in a win on the last day of the season when winning the Umkomazi Stakes and with Tristan Godden retaining the ride. Tempting Fate has not managed the winner’s enclosure since his Gold Medallion success and his recent form is not inspiring. But the tongue-tie is back on and you write him off at your peril. With the recent win under his girth, Pray For Rain may prove the pick of the Drier pair but only the brave will be labelling anything in a seriously competitive sprint.

Captain Tatters took full advantage of a drop in class and favourable weight conditions to finally win his second race but he has come on nicely since being fitted with blinkers. He tried further last run but does seem better over this shorter trip. The speedy Chantyman will have plenty of supporters. He is quick and the best weighted. He is way better than his last effort in the Mercury Sprint where he was in contention until the final 100m before tiring late.

The key to cutting down on expenses in the exotics is finding a banker. Gareth van Zyl’s gelding Hasta Manana ticks all the boxes in the fifth and should he fail, he will consign a large number of exotic bet tickets to the recycle bin.

Hasta Manana looked the perfect fit when pencilled in for his last intended start but he was scratched ostensibly with an abnormal blood picture. That appears to be behind him and he must surely rate the most accomplished maiden in the country after finishing close-up in the Gr1 Premier’s Champion Stakes. That was his first run after gelding and with that run under his girth and a plum draw, it will come as a surprise should he get beaten.

If there is to be an upset, then Dean Kannemeyer’s charge Ideal Act may fit the bill. He has only had a single start on the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly and is sure to benefit from the outing.

In the card opener, Drive By made marked improvement when racing in first time blinkers and looks to have more to come. She may be the one to beat although the year older Leopard Lady has run two crackers on this course and will have plenty of supporters.

In the second, Symmetry was in contention until the final furlong of her last start and can come on strongly from that effort. Queen Mercury makes her local debut and was not far back in the soft in her last Kenilworth outing. Lightly raced but meets a modest field here.

MJ Odendaal appears to have found the right race for Duquesne Whistle in the third. Anton Marcus appears to have picked a plum here and she and rates the one to beat.

The fourth could potentially end up in a duel between Lucky Miss and October Song. Lucky Miss ran a cracker in The Debutante, taking on some of the best around, finishing five lengths off Maryah. The Howells stable is in mustard form of late which adds to the filly’s attraction.

October Miss on the other hand was supported like the result was already in the frame when making her debut, but Mike Miller’s charge was all at sea behind the well-fancied Kitten’s Adventure.

She is sure to have made the required improvement and Lucky Miss will need to be on her toes.

The seventh is a wide-open handicap but the Gary Rich-trained No Name Brand took on much stronger first time out of the maidens. He’s not the easiest at the gate but will go close if he gets through the loading ordeal. We All Chomies has been in good form on the poly for Kom Naidoo and a light weight should see him make a bold bid. Hampton Court and Chief Executive are others to consider in a race where it may pay to included the field in exotics.

Rachel Venniker is no ordinary apprentice and she won well on Lady Catherine when the filly made her debut for Michael Roberts. Venniker is full value for her 4kg claim and Lady Catherine can go in again. Maquette is rated by her stable and won well second time out. She looks useful and can give plenty of cheek. Lady Legend has been taking on stronger from wide draws at recent starts while Her Royal Majesty is down in class with a 4kg claimer up and one to watch in the betting