Enjoying the sunshine at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on Saturday, Justin Snaith saddled four winners, including a likely Cape Derby prospect in the Drakenstein-bred Future Free, who cruised home to win a Class 5 1800m.
No pressure – the last horse to carry the Bernard Kantor silks in the Snaith yard was 2018/19 SA Horse Of The Year Do It Again!
And it’s early days. The half-brother to treble Gr1-winning Equus Horse Of The Year – and Snaith’s fifth Cape Derby winner – Eight On Eighteen, was only following up on a modest 1400m maiden victory at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth last month.
But the manner in which he turned it on to beat the hard-knocking 5yo four-time winner Baton Rouge (fair enough, under topweight of 63,5kgs) was impressive.
With Craig Zackey soaring to the 31 winner mark atop the SA jockey log – 9 ahead of joint seconds Calvin Habib and Serino Moodley – Future Free, who is raced by Bernard Kantor in partnership with Drakenstein Stud, was given a typically kind and thinking man’s ride by the astute Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein jockey, who opted to take the outside route home up the home straight.
In a matter of strides, Future Free (17-10) collared the soldier Baton Rouge (2-1) at the 250m marker and drew clear to win unextended by 2,50 lengths in a time of 110,67 secs for the 1800m.
Justin Snaith trained the winner’s Captain Al dam dam Sempre Libre, who was unraced, but is proving a winner in the Drakenstein paddocks. Out of the champion broodmare Mystic Spring, who is a celebrated matriarch, she is a sibling to a number of stakes winners, including Rabiya and Bela-Bela, and a three-parts sister to the top-class Snowdance.
Snaith declared at the start of the season that he would be using different jockeys to suit the horse, and his four winners today lived up to that policy, ridden as they were, by JP van der Merwe (2),Callan Murray and Zackey.
“Craig gave Future Free a great ride. That’s the way we want to see a young horse brought on. He will enjoy the summer course at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth, and is one of a number of Futura offspring out of smart mares that could prove themselves this summer,” he added.
Zackey labelled the winner, now a tw-time winner from five starts, as ‘laid back and uncomplicated, and still soft’.
Snaith threw a black-booker in for the punters – the Hawwaam filly Homing Pigeon, who was drawn wide and hung, but ran 4,10 lengths off,in the third.
On his way back from a family holiday in Turkey, Glen Kotzen celebrated a double on the afternoon with Chad Little. Tracey Woolard saddled Sewame (33-1) and Worldly (3-1) in the absence of the Woodhill Racing boss.
The next Race Coast Cape racemeeting is on Monday 22 September, with the Gr3 Matchem and Gr3 Diana Stakes being run at the same venue on Saturday 27 September.
Original article written by SportingPost