Fairytale! Rain Gal (Sean Cormack) surges ahead to win the Final Fling Stakes (Equine Edge)
Cape owner Hassen Adams celebrated a dream plan come together at Kenilworth on Saturday, when his Galileo mare Rain Gal showed terrific heart and courage to win the R150 000 Gr3 Final Fling Stakes run over 1800m. The daughter of Galileo, once bravely labelled ‘our Igugu’ by her passionate owner, now goes to stud as a valuable and very exciting broodmare prospect.
It was way back in November 2011 when Rain Gal had just won her third start, a lowly rated handicap down the Kenilworth straight, that Adams suggested the tag that was to accompany the gallant bay through the next two seasons of mostly ups, but the inevitable downs too.
The fairytale had a happy ending on Saturday though with the magnificently bred 6yo going almost from gun to tape to win a courageous race and retire with that sought after black type.
She is due to go to Adams’ L’Ormarin’s Queen’s Plate winner Gimmethegreenlight, who stands at Varsfontein Stud and whose first foal landed just last week.
Rain Gal’s win is just a happy movie with many stars.
Trainer Justin Snaith took the talented filly over from Darryl Hodgson early in her career.
It was Snaith that put his proverbial on the block and persuaded Hassen Adams to keep Rain Gal in training for another year to attempt to earn the seal of approval that makes such a difference in the sales catalogue pages. Snaith had just about run out of time!
Snaith added afterwards that Saturday’s win was the result of a ‘fantastic ride’ by Sean Cormack.
And Cormack is the next star of the show.
He ended up a hero after taking the initiative early in a race, where he had always been concerned about a lack of pace.
“I didn’t see a lot of pace initially and they were going too slowly after the jump. So I forced my way to the front. Halfway down the straight I could feel my ears burning as I imagined what Justin was probably saying, and thought,this is it. Either I’m the hero or villain! But she kept finding every time I asked and it worked out really well,” he smiled.
Passion and Pride. Hassen Adams was over the moon at Kenilworth on Saturday
Owner Hassen Adams termed the race a ‘big win’.
For a man who has a Met and a Queen’s Plate trophy amongst many others in his cabinet at home, this victory by one of his favourites (he has many!) was obviously tremendously pleasing:
“She is super special this mare. And the way Sean rode her! Well done to the whole Snaith team too,” he said with a broad smile.
And it was genuinely Cormack’s ride that made all the difference. Although we also have to feel for Stuart Randolph, who was originally engaged to ride Rain Gal. He landed up riding the lesser fancied Dumani.
Cormack’s move to take Rain Gal around her field after 200m and seize the initiative was extraordinary, in that most of us seasoned observers know her as a late charge merchant who battles to get interested in her races early on.
While the challengers came from all side in the final 300m, Cormack’s brave move paid dividends as Rain Gal plugged on strongly hard up against the inside rail and won by a half length in a time of 113,94 secs.
Varsfontein Stud’s Imperial State flew late for second place to hold off Margaret Court by a neck.
Joey Ramsden’s Schism ran fourth.
The fancied Cash Register had every chance but battled to get going and was not disgraced in fifth place.She should also make a fantastic broodmare and will maintain the golden thread of a special family for the Woodhill based Kotzen family and their connections.
Rain Gal was bred in Australia by Messrs T Mobbs & Ken Wikely and is a daughter of world champion sire Galileo out of the three time winning Hurricane Sky mare, Raining.
She retires with a record of 5 wins and 11 places from her 21 starts.
Rain Gail had her first 7 starts for Darryl Hodgson, and won 2 of those.
She had her first outing for Justin Snaith in April 2012. She spent the rest of her career in the Snaith’s care.
She took her earnings with Saturday’s win to R315 975.
The exciting news is that she will be visiting Gimmethegreenlight.
The good looking son of More Than Ready, who is the sire of over 100 stakes winners including 3 champions and over US$85 million in stakes, stands at Varsfontein Stud.
Syndicate manager John Freeman said of Gimmethegreenlight :
“He hails from a precocious Australian dam-line and he caught my eye when I saw him win the first of his first four races as a two-year-old. He is a superb looking colt and a very exciting sire prospect. When I saw him annihilate Variety Club in the Queen’s Plate I begged Hassen to let me handle his career when the time came. I am delighted that Hassen turned down all those offers to export him – we need this type of blood in South Africa.”
Pedigree expert Rob Knuppe is on record as saying:
“Of all the thousands of deep pedigree searches I have undertaken in the past decade I have yet to see a more exciting pedigree make-up come close to that of Gimmethegreenlight. It is a foregone conclusion that he will be challenging South Africa’s top Sires in just a few years from now”.
Hassen Adams has shown a penchant for naming his horses after the odd popular song.
In this instance the lyrics of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s hit, ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’, come to mind, as the theme song for this great movie.
Good men through the ages tryin’ to find the sun, and I wonder, still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain!
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Final Fling S. (SAf-G3) (8/10)
