Danie Toerien
The best April Fool jokes are the ones people believe.
Well, on Friday at Fairview, the Alan Greeff trained Phoenix made a fool of many punters when she took the honours in race 6, a Pinnacle Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 400m.
Stable companion Santa Therese was regarded by many as an exotic banker, but she found the going a lot tougher than anyone expected and eventually had to settle for fourth place, with Irish Willow and Herrin also ahead of her.
Yes, believe it. No joke.
Phoenix, with Charles Ndlovu in the saddle, stormed in from nowhere, even catching race commentator Brandon Bailey by surprise. Ndlovu timed his run to absolute perfection and had this race been part of a Hollywood movie, it would have taken at least a few dozen takes to get it right.
In defence of Santa Therese, it must be noted that her last three runs were at Kenilworth where she was expected to perform way above her pay grade. Those three outings probably had a dire effect on her confidence, and she was coming off a 62-day break.
That, however, does not take anything away from Phoenix, who has now added her name to the growing list of runners who have relocated to the Eastern Cape and have made racing at Fairview a lot more competitive.
Phoenix gave Greeff his third winner on the day after he also visited the winner’s enclosure with first-timer No Greater Love and Mur Mur in the opening two events respectively.
The latter, with Teaque Gould in the irons, paid R26,50 on the tote.
Trainer Tara Laing also scored her first double of the season on Friday with Almighwaar and Integrity in the third and fifth races respectively.
Almighwaar made his debut over 1600m and on Friday shed his maiden tag at the second time of asking over the same distance. According to Laing this son of What A Winter is considered a serious stayer.
“There aren’t many stayers around,” said Laing after the win. “It wasn’t ideal to put him out over 1600m first time out, but what do you do? He’s not going to be a sprinter, so it would have been a waste of a run. We galloped him and he was lazy. We increased his work slowly but surely to boost his stamina and I was very happy with his final work.
“When I saw him going down to start today, I realised this is where he needs to be. It’s almost as if the penny dropped when he got onto the course.”
With that said, Almighwaar is definitely a horse to follow.