Cape champion jockey Aldo Domeyer stopped the Zac Purton steamroller in his tracks on the 999 winner mark when he grabbed the feature race honours at Happy Valley on Wednesday evening.
Green Luck was unable to round off Purton’s four-winner evening with what would have been a champagne victory, running second behind the massively talented Domeyer on Doctor Geoff in the concluding Class 2 Wong Nai Chung Gap Handicap over 1800m.
Aldo Domeyer – rising star in action at Greyville in Durban (Pic – Gold Circle)
Aldo Domeyer’s mount survived an inquiry after lugging into Green Luck and bumping his rival a couple of times in the final strides.
Purton may have missed the 1000 winner milestone but he arrived downtown for the eight-race card with more than one milestone blinking on his radar, needing 30 wins from the final 11 meetings to match Joao Moreira’s all-time single season win record of 170. Now the target is 26 from 10.
The champion jockey continued his domination with a four-timer, moving to within one of becoming only the second rider in history to accrue 1000 wins in Hong Kong.
For Domeyer the victory came at a good time – with the Hong Kong Jockey Club sitting down in the next few day to make decisions on the new season. The Capetonian has settled in well into the rough ‘n tumble rhythm of life in the fast-paced racing jurisdiction.
Stipes Report – feature
In the early part of the Straight, DOCTOR GEOFF raced with its head on the side and lay in.
A Domeyer (DOCTOR GEOFF) was advised to exercise more care for allowing his mount to shift out after the 100 Metres and bumping GREEN LUCK and was also reprimanded for failing to take sufficient measures to prevent his mount from again shifting out passing the 50 Metres, resulting in GREEN LUCK being hampered.
When GREEN LUCK was shifted out away from the heels of DOCTOR GEOFF close to the finishing line, NOT USUAL TALENT, which was following, was steadied and shifted in away from the heels of that horse. Consequently NOT USUAL TALENT was not able to be ridden out all the way to the end of the race.
The Stewards deferred the declaration of weighed-in as they were of the view that two incidents occurred over the final 100 Metres which cast sufficient doubt as to whether DOCTOR GEOFF should be declared the winner. It was found that passing the 100 Metres DOCTOR GEOFF shifted out and bumped GREEN LUCK. It was further established that passing the 50 Metres DOCTOR GEOFF again shifted out, resulting in GREEN LUCK having to be shifted out away from the heels of that horse. Having regard to the margin between the two horses at the relevant stages of the race and at the end of the race, the Stewards did not believe that had the incidents not occurred GREEN LUCK would have finished in front of DOCTOR GEOFF and therefore the matter did not proceed to a formal objection/protest hearing with weighed-in being semaphored on the Judge’s placings. Whilst it did not have any bearing on the Stewards’ decision not to proceed to a formal protest/objection hearing, it should be noted that neither Jockey Z Purton nor the connections of GREEN LUCK lodged a protest/objection.
When questioned, G van Niekerk (CHARITY GO) stated that from the wide barrier he was asked to relax the horse in the early stages and shift it across behind runners in order to have it finish off the race which it had not been doing in its recent races.
After the race, the Veterinary Officer reported that VICTORY BOYS finished mildly distressed.
DOCTOR GEOFF and GREEN LUCK were sent for sampling.
