Trainers eye new course for Lanzerac
NEXT year’s Lanzerac Green Point will be run on the new course if trainers get their way. Justin Snaith has volunteered to provide staff to help move the rails!
He said: “This is now a very big meeting and, as such, it should be run on our premier track.”
The longer straight is the most significant difference between the so-called new course and the winter one and over it Futura would almost certainly have collared Captain America instead of being beaten a rapidly-dwindling half length.
But Corne Orffer made it a never-to-be-forgotten 35th birthday by stealing the race. He swept Captain America straight to the front and, as he turned into the straight, he kicked into what proved an unassailable lead.
Brett Crawford said: “This horse likes to use his action so we decided to go on if nobody else did. It’s the Queen’s Plate next.”
It will be for Futura, too, with Snaith saying: “There is nothing else for him in the meantime but I am over the moon at the way he ran here.”
Paterfamilas, at 50-1 the rank outsider of the field, was only another half length back third but there were some complaints from the riders in the stands that the leader was given too much rope.
Joey Ramsden called for the stipes to adopt the Australian approach of questioning jockeys about their tactics. His Act Of War was deliberately ridden with patience.
Derek Brugman said: “From that bad draw we didn’t want to let him go and teach him bad habits”.
He made up six lengths in the straight and he remains very much in the spotlight for the L’Ormarins January 9 showpiece.
Vaughan Marshall will run both Kenilworth Cup winner Gothic and fourth-placed Desert Swirl in the J & B Jet Stayers but Greg Cheyne would fancy his chances of beating them on the front-running Parachute Man if that race was run on Kenilworth Cup terms.
He said: “Aldo Domeyer got it because Gothic’s nose was down as we crossed the line. My horse would not lie down and even in another furlong and a half Gothic would never have passed me.”
Marshall’s Exelero was reported striding short when a heavily backed joint favourite for the Cape Merchants but the Milnerton trainer said: “He hit his head on the pens but I had him checked out by my own vet and he was OK. He did have a slight discharge afterwards and he is not yet back in full work.”
The Lanzerac City Of Oaks Handicap was a landmark for Money Surger.
It was her 75th race – more than twice as many as the rest of the field combined – and the eightyear-old got up on the line to thrill Piet Steyn.