Silvan Star could be in line for a crack at the Diana Stakes after bouncing back to form under Greg Cheyne in the All To Come Novice Plate at Durbanville on Saturday.
Glen Kotzen, who has already won the Diana four times this century, said: “The race comes up quite soon but I have nominated her and we will see how she pulls up.
“I thought she was going to be my Daisy Fillies Guineas runner but she had a dreadful Durban season with only one run in four months. She was suffering from travel sickness when she arrived and then she had foot abscess after foot abscess.”
Francia, on whom Cheyne led over a furlong out to become the first filly to take the Settlers Trophy since Let’s Be Cool in 2003, might find herself in the Gold Cup at the end of the season.
Justin Snaith said: “We were lucky to find a race like the Settlers – it was basically a 90 merit-rated Listed race – and I only stuck her in at the last minute when I saw the ratings of the entries but she is the sort of filly you could run in the Gold Cup.”
For the second Durbanville Saturday in a row Snaith won half the races but in the Itsarush.co.za Handicap it was Cheyne on 10-1 chance Union Jack who came off worst. In the closing stages Fifty Cents came off a straight line, possibly edging away from Richard Fourie’s whip, and Union Jack was squeezed like a lemon.
At least that was how it looked from the stands and on TV. The films in the boardroom showed rather more clearly how Union Jack, intimidated but not touched by the winner, bounced off the quarters of the strong finishing second-placed Icy Trail and lost his momentum.
The stipes decided there were no grounds for changing the result and Cheyne took the same view although he reported: “I was unfortunate. I was interfered with but I couldn’t win an objection because I was only third.”
The next Snaith winner, Sabine Plattner’s 22-10 favourite Twinkle Toes, also caused a stir but before the race. She dived into the parade ring gazebo and nearly decapitated rider Shadley Fortune. Her trainer then came up with the understatement of the month: “I’ve got to calm her down – she’s a bit hot.”
Fourie rode the stable’s other two winners and seemingly even he has joined the army of onlookers who openly wondered why he was so hesitant about taking his old job back earlier in the year. “It’s a thrill, and exciting how things are going at the moment,” he said.
It was also quite a day for Geoff Woodruff. At Turffontein newcomer Singapore Sling, backed from 8-1 to a still generous 3-1, lived up to the months of talk about him catching pigeons by romping home nearly six lengths clear in the manner of something special and at Durbanville the diminutive California Girl belied her lack of inches by following up her first time win, coming from last to first under Donovan Dillon.
Daughter Lucy said: “She is only 14.3 hands and she showed nothing until just before she first ran. Since then she has come on by leaps and bounds. She is a CTS Million Dollar candidate and hopefully she will be good enough to get in.”
Boyfriend Adam Marcus has taken his string from just ten when he started in 2012 to over 60 and he struck with the Grant van Niekerk-ridden Diva Fever in the opener while in the last Riaan van Reenen and Carl Burger made it three for their new partnership when Craig du Plooy sprang the shock of the season (so far at least) by making most of the running on 66-1 shot Royal Fleece.
Michael Clower
