No stopping when the light is green

The four–year-old on Saturday took the honours in the 4Racing Premier’s Champions Challenge over 2000m at Turffontein to record his second Grade 1 victory of 2021 with Muzi Yeni in the saddle.

The race was run at a very slow pace, something trainer Joe Soma earlier in the week said he did not want, as the race then often turns into a sprint with some of the more fancied runners getting caught.

That’s exactly what happened to Paul Peter’s Summer Pudding and Mike de Kock’s Malmoos.

Second Base, trained by Johan Janse van Vuuren, ran second with Sean Tarry’s Cirillo third and Summer Pudding closing out the Quartet.

Gavin Lerena, jockey of second-placed Second Base, lodged an objection against the winner for an incident that happened at the 1600m mark but it was overruled and the result stood.

Earlier, Justin Snaith took the Grade 1 4Racing Computaform Sprint with Rio Querari, who proved far too good for for his rivals, easily beating Bohica by 2.25 lengths with True To Life, who started TAB favourite, in third. 

“Justin had him spot on,” said jockey Grant van Niekerk, “but I don’t think he knows how good Rio Querari is.” 

Snaith almost conceded that comment when he said: “He never started like this. He’s just improved and improved.”  

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