Monday Musings: G1 Fun in the Rainbow Republic Sun

The commentator summed it up as he went over the line, writes Tony Stafford. One Stripe was one of only two three-year-olds in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday. “The Prince becomes a King”, he said, deserved praise indeed as the Vaughan Marshall colt by top local stallion One World weaved through from far back to win South Africa’s most prestigious weight-for-age contest in style.

In the history of a race that began in 1861 as the Queen’s Plate – a title restored when Queen Elizabeth II inherited the throne – there have been only ten three-year-old winners, and just two before One Stripe in the past 50 years.

If you needed testimony from someone near at hand, ask Oisin Murphy. Booked for rides in both the day’s Group 1 races, Murphy sat helpless on eventual fourth-placed Royal Aussie, more than four lengths behind, as One Stripe powered through late to emphasise his mastery over South Africa’s best older stars – admittedly most of them on the day running disappointingly.

The £75k winner’s prize is handsome enough when considered on its own. In the context of the 23 Rand to the £ official exchange rate, a prize of almost R1.74 million to the winner makes more eye-catching interest.

For many English winters, William Haggas has been a regular visitor, especially to Cape Town and, according to another UK-based handler Dylan Cunha, he was in attendance again for the big day.

Cunha, back on his old stamping ground, taking a pause from his exploits in only a second full season in the UK, was there even though he had had a couple of runners, both performing creditably, on the previous day’s action at the Dubai Carnival.

We all know about his smart handicapper Silver Sword, but a new name is likely to adorn the winner’s enclosures this year. Recent acquisition King’s Call only tired in the last furlong but still was beaten just more than a length. He was the sole 3yo in this field of experienced handicappers and will not be reaching his third birthday until March 22.

With such a wonderful exchange rate, anybody who visits South Africa seems to vow to return reporting that dinner for four in good restaurants can sometimes cost less than for one in London’s West End.

My reason for majoring this week on the Republic is not merely to record the exploits of One Stripe. The colt won the Cape Guineas only three weeks earlier, and that has been hitherto regarded as a double too difficult to attempt. This season has brought six wins and a place from eight starts and improving all the while. Well done, Vaughan.

I wanted to remind or perhaps more likely inform UK readers that something is stirring from what had been an almost moribund racing industry there a decade or even less ago.

I have the great good fortune to receive four times weekly a digest of South African racing and breeding from the online magazine, Turf Talk. You can subscribe from that link and I find it enjoyable and informative reading most weekdays. I’m sure you will enjoy it too, especially in the dull and dingy days of winter at home.

Without the South African interest this week, I would no doubt have gone on endlessly about the fiasco of the three Musselburgh inspections on Friday, the last of which was ten minutes before the first race were when the two runners were already in the paddock – seven others had already been withdrawn.

As I was writing on Sunday morning, Plumpton yesterday with a Premier Racecard and more than £100,000 in prizes available to the winners had declared at 8.30 a.m., “Racing goes ahead.”. Then, two hours later, “Sorry, it’s not.”

More rain than expected fell between the two events. No doubt Peter Savill, the course’s owner, will have been gutted as well as those arriving at the track encouraged by the earlier bulletin. An even later look revealed that Chepstow managed two races before calling it a day!

I digress. Since 2011, the exportation of South African horses to the European Union (and the UK) and elsewhere had been prohibited, because of a breakout in that year of African horse sickness. It took years of lobbying by the industry to get the ban removed. The much-publicised immediate outcome was the arrival in the US last summer of two high-class performers, each taken into the Graham Motion yard for their spell on the other side of the world.

The six-year-old gelding Isivunguvungu and the three-year-old filly Beach Bomb were the two trailblazers. Both competed at the Breeders’ Cup meeting in early November at Del Mar and neither could be said to have been out of place.

Beach Bomb, who almost a year earlier had won the Cartier Paddock Stakes, the Group 1 principal supporting race on the L’Ormarins King’s Plate card, had a couple of unlucky runs in defeat before turning out for the Filly and Mare Turf. Her chance was reflected in a starting price of 55/1, but she outperformed those odds finishing only three-and-a half lengths back in eighth. Two places and only half a length ahead of her was the Aidan O’Brien-trained filly Content, winner of the Yorkshire Oaks a couple of months earlier.

Isivunguvungu, a six-year-old gelding, warmed up for Del Mar with a nice win worth £70k in a black-type turf race at Colonial Downs. Although he finished only seventh in the Turf Sprint, he would have been much closer position-wise bar being snatched up in the scrimmage in the middle of the track as Ralph Beckett’s Starlust scraped along the inside rail to win.

This relaxation of exporting South African horses will no doubt be even more marked when the best-bred animals from such studs as Drakenstein come onto the market.

No doubt Dylan, with his knowledge of the land where he trained Group 1 winners before trying his luck in the UK, will be examining the possibility of picking up bargains from the best studs, given the exchange rate. Other leading UK trainers, exasperated by the tough buying conditions with such as Coolmore, Godolphin, Amo Racing and the rest from over here in competition at the top end, will also be testing the water.

Beach Bomb’s successor as winner of the Cartier Paddock Stakes on Saturday was Double Grand Slam, as with One Stripe an emphatic and well-backed favourite cheered home by the big crowd.

If information about South African racing seems to be limited to the odd big day such as the King’s Plate, with its 168-year history and the Durban July, I have been lucky enough to keep in touch via Turf Talk with its excellent mix of reports, previews and breeding news.

Gavin Lareda, who showed his excitement after passing the post in front on One Stripe, is one winer off the lead in the South African table behind 20-year-old Craig Zackie with 106 victories. Last year’s record-breaking champion Richard Fourie is third on a dangerous 99.

It’s not just in racing where enthusiasm is high in the rainbow Republic. The rugby union team is the current World Champion while its cricket side are in the middle of a test match with Pakistan, having made a first innings score of well over 600.

Cricket and racing have been closely allied there for many years. Craig Kieswetter, a wicketkeeper batsman with 71 white-ball appearances for England, is closely involved through his family’s Barnane Stud. With such icons over the years as Basil D’Oliviera, Allan Lamb, Kevin Pietersen and up to the latest, new fast bowler Brydon Carse, the England cricket team has owed much to South Africa.

Barnane are joint-owners of the Willie Mullins top-class chaser Il Etait Temps with the biggest South African ownership entity Hollywood Racing (formerly Hollywood Partnership). Il Etait Temps was third In the Arkle Chase for Willie Mullins’ yard last year but improved on that to win the two Grade 1 two-mile novice chases at Aintree and Punchestown. He has yet to appear this winter.

I didn’t have to look far though to spot the continuing influence on racing of a long-standing breeder and owner whose pre-eminence in his own sport extends back six decades. Gary Player, 89, won the first of his 12 Major golf championships, the 1965 US Open, at the age of 29. Since then, he has been a breeder and owner at a high level in his native land.

On Saturday at Kenilworth, Player was part-owner, with the country’s primary stud Drakenstein and Mr D D McClean, of Double Grand Slam, winner of the Group 1 Cartier Paddock Stakes. What a man!

Looking at what Gary is still achieving, maybe it’s not too late to go over there and get some of that invigorating sunshine, possibly next January. At least the pound will go a little further there than it seems to do here nowadays.

 - TS

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