The scratching of Ancient Epic from Race 1 at Greyville on Monday has hopefully paved the way for Casa Rosada to finally open her account.
Ancient Epic, who was carded to be ridden by Anton Marcus, looked all the rage to win this Maiden Plate for fillies and mares over 1000m on the Polytrack. However, the daughter of Vercingetorix was withdrawn on Sunday afternoon by trainer Gareth van Zyl, who reported that his charge had a swollen knee.
That looks like good news for trainer Garth Puller who saddles Casa Rosada.
This four-year-old daughter of Elusive Fort started her career in Cape Town, and after she finished a 0.90-length third behind Noosa Princess in her second start, which was over 1000m at Kenilworth, thoughts of a victory could not have been far off.
However, that was the last time she would place in Cape Town. The weird thing is that she has not been disgraced in any of her races and has rarely finished far behind the winner.
The decision was finally taken to move her to KwaZulu-Natal where she had a chance to improve on the Polytrack.
She joined Garth Puller’s yard towards the end of May, but only had her first race in the province on 26 July. That was over 1200m on the Polytrack where she finished a 2.20-length fourth behind Backstop.
She was all at sea on that occasion and obviously needed some encouragement, as jockey Ashton Arries fell foul of the stipendiary stewards from “crop misuse”.
She did drift in the betting which indicates it was a try-out run. It is interesting that Puller has dropped her to 1000m as she is a half-sister to Binoche, who won all four of her races over the minimum trip.