Blaze Of Fire and Francois Herholdt are on their own at the finish of the Fairview feature (Coastal Photos)
The next time your trainer makes excuses about not running your horses, cite the Blaze Of Fire precedent. This gutsy 6yo entire was pacing it out behind Futura in the Gr1 Champions Cup on Super Saturday and just six days later came out and did more pace work to win the R100 000 Friendly City Stakes at Fairview.
Trainer Yvette Bremner must take much of the credit for both the preparation and the courage to run a horse at such a short interval.
He had, after all, been strutting his stuff on the season finale stage 700km up the east coast at Greyville in Durban only a matter of days earlier.
Blaze Of Fire’s gutsy performance was made all the more meritorious by the sad list of casualties that marked the gloomy post-mortems following the Greyville raceday.
The track came in for some serious stick from disenchanted owners and trainers and was blamed for more than one casualty.
Blaze Of Fire ran handily in the Beach Beauty Champions Cup and finished under five lengths off the budding star, Futura.
That was obviously no fluke as he had run third to Jackson in the 2013 Champions Cup.
On Friday Blaze Of Fire arrived none the worse for wear as he dropped from Gr1 to non black-type level. He jumped out and was never headed as he was chased all the way by the gallant Silent Partner.
Into the home straight , Francois Herholdt gave Blaze Of Fire a breather before easily withstanding a late barrage of threats, that never really materialised.
They just had no answers to the powerful son of Victory Moon who galloped relentlessly to win by 1,25 lengths in a time of 111,18 secs.
He started at 5 to 2 and stayed on well to beat the ever present Silent Partner, with the improved again Lord Badger plugging on late to snatch third place.
The Snaith runner Indian Hawk was never in it and ran stone last after drifting in the betting.
The winner was bred by Maine Chance Farms and is by Victory Moon out of the once winning Secret Prospector mare Buccellati.
A bargain R70 000 Ready-To –Run graduate, Blaze Of Fire has won eight races and been placed a further seventeen times from his 40 career starts.
He took his earnings to R904 275 with this win and looks to have a potentially rewarding season ahead of him.
His victory was the middle leg of a brilliant hat-trick for Yvette Bremner who made a flying start to the new season.
