Two features at Turffontein on Saturday illustrated opposite situations – emerging youngster, Smorgasbord showed that he is on a swift upward trend when leaping from a previous best speed figure of 99 up to 105 in the Grade 2 Senor Santa Stakes whilst older Grade 1 campaigner, Zillzaal eventually regained his mojo in the Drum Star Handicap, running right back to his previous best of 106, attained many moons ago.
Keagan de Melo rode Zillzaal to victory, continuing the jockey’s current hot vein of form. The winner, a former Summer Cup 2019 victor over Soqrat, has always been a bit in and out, but Sean Tarry is adept at getting charges to bounce back from spells in the doldrums and he duly extracted another peak figure – good enough to beat off stable companion, Shango.
The places were rounded off by another Tarry trained entry, Nebraas (s/s 104) to make it a notable 1-2-3 for the ace Highveld conditioner, with Donald McDonald (s/s 103) clocking in fourth.
Warrior’s Rest was another Tarry runner to wake up big time, though he just could not cope with Paul Peter’s progressive speedball, Smorgasbord’s swifter finish on the stand side rail in the Senor Santa Stakes over 1160m. Smorgasbord (s/s 105 +) is now a three- time winner from eight starts and will run even higher scores with added maturity.
Under Your Spell (s/s 101 +) caught the eye dashing home with a late burst into the trifecta slot. She won the G1 Allan Robertson as a juvenile with a big number of 102 and this three-year-old Cape Town Noir filly looks like she is now training on impressively. Follow her closely over the next couple of months.
Litigation (s/s 96) and Light of the Moon (s/s 89) won the Derby and Ormond Ferraris Oak Trails, respectively. Princess Kesh was an unlucky loser of the latter – she gave away many lengths at the start so only going down in a tight finish represents a mighty brave rally from a hopeless position.
Socrates is one of the more consistent horses in training. Trained by Shane Humby in Durban, he took out the headliner at Greyville on Sunday when beating off Tempting Fate and Coin Spinner in a Pinnacle Stakes over 1200m. He often runs figures of exactly 100 so is always competitive in what we used to refer to as “top division” races. This was the seventh career victory for the durable Horse Chestnut gelding.