Triple Crown hero Abashiri has a new owner and is to be given a lengthy break before making an assault on the Sansui Summer Cup.

Mike Azzie said: “I scratched him from The Sun Met straight after his run in the Queen’s Plate. He will now have a good rest and then I will start him off from scratch once more and aim him at the Summer Cup.  He is a good horse and, while he might have lost his form, he won’t lose his ability.”

Abashiri (Nkosi Hlophe)

The four-year-old finished last in the Queen’s Plate and was returned not striding out. He was a well beaten fifth in the Green Point on his previous start, after a tough journey from Johannesburg which put him off his food for two days. However Azzie traces the horse’s loss of form to his running in the Vodacom Durban July.

He said: “Abashiri had a hard time winning the Triple Crown and I begged the owner (Adriaan van Vuuren) to put him away but he wanted to go for the July. The horse should never have run. He has recently changed hands and will race in the name of Corner Stone Trust for an owner I used to train for some years ago.”

Trainer-of-the-moment Brett Crawford is to be sent the Trippi colt out of a half-sister to Jeppe’s Reef and Disco Al who equalled the South African yearling record when knocked down to Coolmore’s M.V. Magnier for R6 million at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale. Markus Jooste is a part-owner in the Drakenstein-consigned colt who is named Mark The Doorman.

Candice Bass-Robinson will train the sales’ second highest-priced lot, Sovereign Sway, a Dynasty colt out of the Woolavington winner Viva Maria and bought by Kuda Holdings for R5.75 million.

Captain Of Tortuga, the R4.5 million Captain Al colt bought by Bernard Marais, is to go to Justin Snaith who won the Cape Fillies Guineas and the Majorca with the colt’s dam Ebony Flyer. Sean Tarry will train the Captain Al colt out of Orator’s Daughter purchased by David Redvers on behalf of Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, also for R4.5 million.

By Michael Clower