FAREWELL TO TWO GIANTS OF SA RACING

A couple of weeks after one of South Africa’s greatest racehorses died a day short of his 19th birthday, one of the country’s all-time top stallions passed on aged 25, writes Gary Lemke for GGGaming.



FAREWELL TO TWO GIANTS OF SA RACING
by Gary Lemke, supplied by GGGaming.bet

A couple of weeks after one of South Africa’s greatest racehorses died a day short of his 19th birthday, one of the country’s all-time top stallions passed on aged 25, writes Gary Lemke for GGGaming.

Pocket Power was found dead from an apparent heart attack in his camp at Hemel n Aarde stud, while Silvano died this week after suffering a bout of colic. Both are great names in the South African racing annals. “Pocket”, as he was affectionately known, was gelded early in his career so never made it to stallion status, but he won some of the country’s top races, including the Vodacom Durban July, the J&B Met three times, and the L'Ormarins Queen’s Plate four times.

Silvano meanwhile, first arrived from Germany in South Africa, where he stood at Maine Chance Farms. Apart from a brief return to his homeland of Germany in 2009, he returned to the Cape and sired 25 Grade One winners in total, a remarkable achievement.

In terms of stakes earned, the recently-retired Hawwaam was the gold mine with over R6.75-million won on the track, but Silvano also sired Vercingetorix and four Durban July winners in Marinaresco, Heavy Metal, Bold Silvano and Power King.

Although he had been retired from stud duties for just over a year, his legacy will live on. Candice Bass-Robinson, head trainer of Bass Racing, who are sponsored by GGGaming, had a record 104 winners last season, and the past couple of weeks will have been somewhat emotional. After all, the stable is the home of Pocket Power, while Marinaresco won the 2017 Durban July for the stable, being a son of Silvano.

Last season Bass Racing had seven different winners sired by Silvano, with the star of the show being the now four-year-old filly Marina, who is a full brother to Marinaresco. She won five races for Bass Racing during the season and the stable have their eyes set on a couple of the big Grade One races for her in the Cape summer season.

This past week also saw the annual Equus Awards, which was another event to be held in a “virtual environment”, an ongoing casualty of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions.

There were no major surprises in terms of the awards, with Rainbow Bridge winning Horse of the Year and War Of Athena taking Three-Year-Old Filly of the Year. Supporters of Kommetdieding and Linebacker might feel they were harshly done by in the Champion Three-Year-Old category and I tend to agree with them. Nothing against the winner, Jet Dark, but when he won the Queen’s Plate he did so carrying the weight of a feather and in many respects it was a wonderfully astute bit of training and race management by Justin Snaith.

Snaith himself took the Champion Trainer honours and deservedly so, and there’s no reason why he won’t be able to defend his title again this season (runs from 1st August to 31st July). He leaves nothing to chance in terms of his long-term planning and although he often comes with “the wrong one” in a race, the stable is always transparent with punters, and punters appreciate that.

Snaith Racing also secured the Champion Sprinter award with Rio Querari, who proved to be the fastest horse in the land when capturing the Computaform Sprint, another feather in the cap of Snaith who took his charge to Gauteng when the trend is for Cape horses to not “raid” the Highveld.

In terms of actual racing we’re in a sort of “quiet before the storm” period, with the new season having started slowly and in fact the midweek meeting at Kenilworth being abandoned after more winter rains.