Andrew Harrison
THERE is something most satisfying when you watch a race with old campaigners giving it their all. They may not be top of the pile but they have earned their battle honours and those passionate about the sport and not desperate about the pay-outs appreciated their efforts.
Not the bing-bam-bang never to be seen again, Wayward (7yrs), Di Mazzio (7yrs) and Coldhardcash (5yrs), punctuated only by the lightly weighted Herecomestherain (3yrs), fought out a desperate finish to the second at Hollywoodbets Greyville yesterday with Wayward getting home two short-heads ahead of his rivals.
Ashburton-based trainer Shane Humby is not a ‘bing-bam-bang’ trainer but he gets the best out of what’s he’s got, even when it takes a little time.
Coldhardcash set a blistering early pace and in any lower rated handicap would have broken the hearts of his rivals, but Donovan Dillon and apprentice Kyle Strydom were always stalking the pace. Along with Herecomestherain, who came from near last, the pair took up arms inside the last furlong and in a desperate three-way tussle, with Dillon resorting to hands rather than the stick, Wayward edged them all out of it.
It was a Humby double in the fourth. With much of the expected opposition defecting for one or other reason, Command Control and Decorated looked the most likely pair to fight it out.
In short, it was no race. Command Control lived up to his name and strolled home to give Humby his second winner of the afternoon. Although it was an easy victory, eight lengths and gearing down, Humby was a little disappointed in that he would have liked a sterner test to see where his charge was placed in the handicap. This was only his sixth start and as a mature four-year-old there is scope for more.
The last developed into a two-way contest between Preferential and Diamonds And Pearls with the latter 2 kg better off at the weights and set to give the Humby stable a rare winning treble. But Diamonds And Pearls had the worst of the draw to contend with and that could well have been the difference between winning and losing in a tight race of this nature where a wide draw is almost equal to two points in the handicap.
Multiple Champion KZN trainer Dennis Drier always tries his luck in Cape Town during their season, whether he has the ammunition or not. This year was not one of his best but he his back in the saddle at Summerveld after the Cape sales. Local assistant Stuart Ferrie was on hand to saddle their ‘giant’ Spirit Of My Fate and, after trying to get the gelding to stay a little further, the “boss”, according to stable rider Sean Veale, said the shorter trip was the way to go. There is no substitute for experience in this sport!
