NO PLAY WITHOUT PUNCH

Chris van Niekerk
(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

Anyone reckoning on counting Summerhill out of the “Big Race” picture this weekend though, was going to get his nose bloodied in emphatic style. Peter Fabricius’ millionaire, Hear The Drums, came home for his 21^st victory in the East Cape Sprint (Listed), while a masterful ride from one of the world’s best pilots, Felix Coetzee, got seven year old Bayete coasting in the Caradoc Gold Cup (Gr.3). That Bayete gets better with age is a tribute to patience and perseverance, and this fellow’s lucky to belong to Chris van Niekerk and to be trained by Sean Tarry.

Greyville’s King’s Cup (Gr.3) very nearly witnessed a Summerhill hat trick as the luckless Thandolwami, Tap Tap and El Padrino ran up 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th in the race that kicks off the KZN Winter season.

VODACOM DURBAN JULY FEVER

Kahal
(Nicholas Goss)

Excitement is building and everyone is asking the million dollar question, who is going to win the Vodacom July?

Many names are being bandied around, but in a random survey of staff at Summerhill it seems the two sons of KAHAL, GALANT GAGNANT and DESERT LINKS, have a lot of support on the farm. Particularly as last weekend saw another two sons of KAHAL earn Black type. ART OF WAR was narrowly beaten by a short head in the Darley Arabian Open (L), and TAP TAP was beaten by half a length in the Thukela Handicap (L).

Are there more in the wings – watch this space!

It's all about hard work and guts.

Battlestar Express, Weichong Marwing and Karen Anthony
(Gold Circle)

 
MEGAN ROMEYN - Clairwood on Saturday saw another day at the office for the Summerhill runners with some cracking performances.

In the 5^th race on the card, the Merit Rated 82 Handicap over 1000m, Battlestar Express, under the guidance of champion jockey Weichong Marwing, held on to win a thriller. This gutsy and talented son of Summerhill sire, Muhtafal, out of the National Assembly mare, National Empress, maintained a steady pace before making his move with 200m to go, running on to record his 3^rd victory from the fast finishing Captivating Party and Jolly Jolly. What made this win all the more impressive was that Battlestar Express was shouldering a huge 61kgs, quite a task for a horse of his small stature.

The latter races on the card also produced some thrillers, with two Ready to Run graduates, both sons of Summerhill sire Kahal, being denied the laurels by desperately close margins. First up was the Darley Arabian Open (Listed) for 3 year olds over 1900m. Sheikh Mohammed’s talented Art Of War was shaded by a nose by Winter Fever in a thrilling tussle. Under jockey Kevin Shea, Art Of War kept up a good pace throughout the race and took up the challenge with 300m to go. He seemed to have the race sewn up after disposing of the dangerous El Padrino. However, Winter Fever had other ideas, and stuck his nose ahead of Art of War and Smart Banker to win by the narrowest of margins.

Next up saw 2005 Ready to Run graduate, Tap Tap, being denied almost certain victory in the Thukela Merit Rated Handicap (Listed) over 1600m. After working his way steadily through the field, and from within the last furlong, Tap Tap, under champion jockey Johnny Geroudis, made his final charge for the line, but it was Scrutinize who held on to take a closely contested victory.

The Smoking Gun : KAHAL is Smouldering

Gavin Smith and Vangelis (Gavin Smith Racing Stables)

There was no big racing in South Africa this past weekend, so we had to settle for a somewhat mundane programme. These are the days though when you look for potential, and you search among the emerging ranks for that little flicker that sets your flames alight. It’s not without bias that we watch our Summerhill runners for these signs of developing greatness and we thought we saw glimpses of a couple of “big things” in the making on Friday and Saturday.

We’ve written before about horses we were left with, and we’re not speaking here of Imbongi alone, but of Vangelis, a big strong son of Kahal out of the Group placed mare, Northern Singer, whose greatest day came when she finished second behind no less a Champion than Époque in what was then known as the J.B. MacIntosh Fillies Classic (now known the Golden SlipperGr.1 ).

Vangelis was labeled a Derby winner the day he was born by our foal foreman, T.K.Nkabinde, yet he was prevented from expressing his talents at two and three by intervening injuries. In the end, we sent him to Port Elizabeth where he was likely to find more constant going, and on Friday he galloped away from a not uncompetitive field in the manner of a really good horse. In his trainer Gavin Smith’s own words, this could be “a proper Stakes horse in the making”, and we hope he’s right.

The Kahal/Northern Guest cross has been one of our most lethal cocktails in recent years, and has spawned the likes of Emperor Napoleon, Bold Ellinore, Evening Attire, Bhekinkhosi etc and now Vangelis. We only needed to wait one more day to see the manifestation of the success of the cross again, when Tap Tap ran away in the dams “top biller” in Johannesburg, which not only included the highly regarded Geoff Woodruff trained import, Aluminum, but also the recent S.A Oaks winner, Urabamba.

Turning for home second last in this competitive line-up, Tap Tap went to the front under a hands and heels ride and strode away in majestic style eliciting from his jockey in the post-race interview that this was a big race winner-in-waiting. His dam, Derniere Danse, yet another daughter of Northern Guest out of the Stakes winning mare, Dancer’s Choice, she a daughter of the imported Rhapsody’s Footstep, a winner of nine races for Denham Rodwell and Ricky Maingard in the days or yore.

Tap Tap was bred at Summerhill in a partnership comprising our old mate, Barry Clements of Perth, and our American based pal, Robert Lynch who recently acquired an interest in a Swettenam-bred daughter of Europe’s current leading stallion, Galileo, as a replacement for the unfortunately deceased Derniere Danse.

KAHAL : He may've lost "THE EMPEROR", but he's far from on the canvas...

Kahal (John Lewis)

If ever a young up-and-coming stallion needed anything less, it would be the loss of his best runner, cut down in the prime of his career. Such a blow confronted our man, KAHAL, recently when he lost his most accomplished son, EMPEROR NAPOLEON, almost bound to have been the opening favourite for the country’s richest race, the R3,5 million Gomma Gomma Challenge, due to be run this coming weekend.

But like the good man he is, KAHAL’s not about to take this lying down. On her last start, (and her first in several months) his Champion daughter BOLD ELLINORE, put up a “bold” display, as her name demands, in the Empress Club Stakes (Gr1), cruising to the front with the entire field off the bit, and going down in the end only because of her lack of condition.

As if giving notice that he wasn’t going to let his father’s setback go unavenged, DESERT LINKS gave notice of his wellbeing for the Gomma Gomma with a 3.5 length victory in Cape Town. The same weekend, TAP TAP bolted away from a competitive bunch at Randjiesfontein, prompting Alec Laird to proclaim him a Stakes winner-in-waiting.

And then this week was a revelation. At Clairwood, GALANT GAGNANT at last fired the shots he’s been telling Mike de Kock he’s capable of, prompting jockey Anthony Delpech to proclaim him “very close” already to IMBONGI. And as the events of this past weekend revealed, that’s putting him in the league of the nation’s best three-year-old miler.

Then, just to show he’s capable of getting a couple of proper juveniles, too, he’s already had one on the Rand (Resounding Spirit) run second to the “untouchable” Merlene de Lago at Grade Three level, and in Nightstalker and Noble Heir, he has another pair making their first appearances at this level in the Strelitzia Stakes (Gr3) on Wednesday.

But perhaps as promising as any of them is SMANGALISO, who blew away a respectable field at the Guineas meeting at Greyville on Saturday. In the process, she became the first juvenile to win in open company this season, and she made a proper “matza” of it, running away by two lengths. That’ll be good enough to qualify her for the R1 million plus Emperor’s Palace Ready To Run Cup on 2^nd November, a mouth-watering prospect for a R90 000 purchase just 5 months ago.

Good on ‘yer, Baron and Baroness Bergsma, Michel Nairac (at last he’s found the secret to a good horse!) and Mike Miller, who picked her.