SEA COTTAGE STAKES : Tribute to a Grand Old Man

Sea Cottage
(Summerhill Stud Library)

When the handicappers of South Africa met in 2000, to pick the best horse of the previous century, they settled on the names of Sea Cottage, Mowgli, Colorado King, Hawaii and Horse Chestnut. While Hartford-born Mowgli was the only one to garner two votes (and might, for obvious reasons, be our sentimental favourite) there’s no denying, that for us at any rate, the best we’ve known was Sea Cottage.

That he’s been demeaned in having a race of only Listed status bestowed upon him, doesn’t detract from the merit of Fenerbahce’s sterling victory in Sunday’s renewal of the race that takes its name from the legend. A creditable second for this R425,000 graduate of the Emperors Palace Ready to Run Sale in November’s Ready to Run Cup, Fenerbahce showed admirable improvement in getting up to beat the Dingaans Gr2 second, Captain’s Table, while the fourth horse home in that event, Broadsword, finished third. The result franked the best form of Gauteng’s top three-year-olds of this season, and with Fenerbahce looking like a horse with improvement to come, and still racing a little green, Andrew Fortune may well be right in his post race interview, in proclaiming this a Derby horse.

Fenerbahce is among five smart purchases for our Turkish friends Fedai Kahraman and Berdan Yerlikaya, and he is the second decent Summerhill winner this week for the Gary Alexander stables, following Bhekinkhosi’s win in the top-liner at Turffontein mid-week.

GALANT GAGNANT : Nice guys come second

Galant Gagnant and Kahal
(Gold Circle / Summerhill Stud)

If money ever had anything to do with the outcome of a race, it was always going to be prohibitive odds-on that Russian Sage would prevail in the ten furlong nominal championship event for the Classic generation, the Daily News 2000 (Gr.1).

Whether his sale last week to the master “picker”, Barry Irwin’s US-based Team Valor was at the reported $1,2 million or $1,75 million is immaterial here. The fact is, he won, even if it was a last stride affair, and pocketed a cool R625 000 in the process, not bad for a couple of days old investment. And he looked like he’s got some improvement in him, so he’s bound to make his presence felt in Dubai next summer.

We did say though, that while we appeared (we speak of Summerhill now) to be outgunned with our three entries from the perspective of pure handicapping, we simultaneously cautioned that you should never count us out. And so, till the last stride of the race, that very nearly proved to be the case as Sheikh Mohammed’s Galant Gagnant (G.G.) seemed to have it sewn up with 150m to go, having turned for home abreast of Russian Sage.

A week in racing is a long time, and so it proved as there has been a miraculous transition in Galant Gagnant’s (G.G.) powers of concentration since he was fitted with blinkers, and we’d say this performance, which puts him up there with the best of his generation at the trip, was close to a stone better than his previous. He was acquired by His Highness at the for a mere R150 000 and like 2006 Ready To Run Imbongi and Umngazi, was a runner in last November’s R500k Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup.

Galant Gagnant (G.G.) is another product of the “lethal cocktail” that exists between his sire Kahal and Northern Guest mares, already revered for producing Champion Bold Ellinore and her massively talented brother, Emperor Napoleon, while the same pattern has thrown Bhekinkhosi, Evening Attire and Khebraat.

This chap was bred in partnership with (you guessed it again) the old rugby mate, Barry Clements of Australia, and American based Robert Lynch. The former’s hit rate (he co-bred Imbongi too) verges on the early years of Cassius Clay, when it comes to big race successes, and it seems that for all his prowess as a Provincial class winger in his day, he’s an even brighter breeding prospect.