Gimme A Shot wins incident-filled Ipi Tombe

Danie Toerien

While the Mike and Adam Azzie-trained Gimme A Shot took the honours in the Grade 2 Betway Ipi Tombe Challenge over 1600m with JP  v'd Merwe in the  saddle, trainer Stuart Pettigrew has reason to feel aggrieved after two of his three runners - Gilded  Butterfly (Randall Simons) and Feather Boa (Kabelo Matsunyane) - took each other out barely a hundred meters into the race.

The official result shows that Gimme A Shot won by: 3.5-lengths from Sean Tarry's Under Your Spell, with Feather Boa another 0.5-lengths behind, and Marigold Hotel completing the quartet.

"For a filly to run in the maidens and then go feature, feature while continually being competitive, and to win in the manner she did today, shows she's top class," said Adam after the race. "I think she's going places."

Her win was impressive, but equally impressive was the performance of Feather Boa, who managed to make up an enormous amount of ground after the altercation with her stable companion.

From the television replay it seems that Simons restrained Gilded Butterfly, unaware that Feather Boa was right behind them.

With nowhere to go, the two collided and drifted out wide. The result was that Gilded Butterfly was pulled out and Feather Boa was left a good ten lengths in no man's land.

Matsunyane stuck to his  task and took Feather Boa on a chase, eventually hauling in all of the field except for Gimme A Shot and Under Your Spell.