Extra Zero (Way West) wins the Sycamore Sprint (Grade 3)
(Photo : JC Photos / Summerhill Stud)
“This week the story gets even better…”
You saw our piece on our blog’s new international website traffic record last month, according to the Alexa rankings. March was another record, both locally and internationally. This time though, we didn’t break those records, we smashed them. Our South African ranking leapt 207 places (25%), and our international record was a staggering 11,003 positions ahead of last month’s new record. Our fans are spread across the entire globe, with 42 countries representing more than 30 individual visits to the site.
These are giant-killing numbers, by any standards, as you’ll have witnessed from the figures we posted last month, relative to all-comers internationally. You don’t want to get carried away with yourself by these things, but it’s a sign not only of the power of technology, but of the value of a good story.
And this week’s story gets even better. When Sean Tarry’s Extra Zero powered home in the Sycamore Sprint (Gr.3) on Saturday, we’d scarcely gotten over Checcetti’s demolition of the Summer Cup heroine, Flirtation in the Jacaranda Handicap (Gr.3) the previous weekend. Flirtation paid homage to that form in the Colorado King Stakes (Gr.2) on Saturday, walloping the colts in menacing fashion: we know Costa Livanos well, and he’ll be having palpitations at the thought of another Group One on Champions’ Day at the end of the month.
When you’re approaching a sale, you need every last “promo” to keep your customers’ attention. There’s no advert like a good winner, and Cape Royal’s six and a quarter length romp on debut for Dean Kannemeyer at Kenilworth yesterday was as good as it gets for this R1,5 million graduate of November’s Ready To Run. We touted him as a veritable flying machine after the gallops at Summerhill, and it’s reassuring when you’re vindicated. He wasn’t alone though : Indaba My Children, a R650,000 graduate of the same sale, was a smart runner-up for Charles Laird in the Godolphin Barb (Gr.3) on only his second racecourse appearance, while he was chased home by a R90,000 National Sales product, Alqaffay in the same event. Dennis Drier’s Secret Babe was a money-getter in Checcetti’s rout, and Catherine Hartley and her pal Sandy Wilson, would’ve been tickled with Final Score’s come-from-behind rip in the closing stages of the Oaks Trial (Listed). They can dream now, as she seems to be better with every yard they tack on to the distance, and she’ll be cherry-ripe for a tilt at the SA Oaks (Gr.1) on Champions’ Day. Her family knows the taste of Classic success, though James Goodman and Barry Walters were still young men when Last Watch grabbed the R1million cheque in the Bloodline Classic (Gr.1), and F.W. de Klerk was still State President. Those were the days when a million was still a million!
www.summerhill.co.za
Friday, April 13, 2012 at 07:06AM 
