Beach Girl

Beach Beauty stepped beyond 1600m for the first time and it took to it like the proverbial duck to water when easily landing the Gold Bracelet over 2000m at Greyville on Sunday. Winner of the Gr2 KRA Fillies Guineas on the course in May and a very fast finishing second in the Gr1 Garden Province Stakes on Vodacom Durban July day four weeks earlier, Beach Beauty went off as the strongly supported even money favourite in a field of nine for this WFA fillies and mares event, writes MATTHEW LIPS.

Emerald Cove had finished a sterling 2.40 lengths eighth behind Igugu from a wide draw in the July and went off as the 33/10 second favourite, but eased from an ante-post call of around half that price in the face of the support for Beach Beauty. Fisani was the 9/2 third favourite, but the other six were easy to back.

Queen’s Bay is a well known frontrunner and soon found herself setting a reasonable but unhurried pace from Fisani and Imperious Star, with Ireland and Beach Beauty pretty much sharing fourth spot ahead of Emerald Cove and Secret Babe. Quick Single brought up the rear as Queen’s Bay continued to guide them around Greyville at her own tempo, but Beach Beauty was never more than some three lengths away and looked to be galloping along very comfortably indeed.

Queen’s Bay still had plenty to give in the straight, but she ultimately had to answer to the finishing kick of the solitary three-year-olds of the field, Beach Beauty and Emerald Cove. It was the former who quickly put the race to bed, leading past the 200m mark and running on very well under Alec Forbes to win pretty much as she liked from a vainly chasing Emerald Cove. Queen’s Bay just managed to come out best of the older horses, beating Fisani out of third place by a head.

Beach Beauty has been a model of consistency and can now boast six wins, one second, and one third from eight career appearances. The step up in trip on Sunday obviously suited her right down to the ground, and opened up a range of new possibilities for her in her forthcoming four-year-old career. Dennis Drier’s filly came here rated one pound below Emerald Cove, the latter already a Gr1 winner, but proved to be a fair bit better than that and over this sort of distance she looks to be second only behind Igugu – and perhaps not such a distant second at that – amongst the fillies born in 2007.

A daughter of Dynasty and as such fully entitled to enjoy distances of around 2000m, Beach Beauty is out of the three-time winning Capture Him mare Sun Coast. She was bred by Trevor Armitage and has earned R598 550 in stakes, with the promise of more to come in the new term.