Karl Zechner salutes as Sir Duke comes home on his own (Pic- Coastal Photos)
Trainer Tara Laing has been out of action with her own medical problems for some time but this has not stopped her team from keeping the stats board ticking over. They saddled another four winners at Fairview on Friday, including Sir Duke in the R150 000 Listed East Cape Sprint Cup.
Tara Laing great four-timer on the day
Ably assisted by former top jockey Gavin Venter, Ms Laing trains solely for the powerhouse Jooste partnership and took her season’s win tally to 39. She has got to be feeling better after this!
Her four firsts included the feature – a terrific ride by the underrated Karl Zechner- with Raymond Danielson riding a double on Coco (fourth race) and Red Barrel (fifth race), while Gavin Lerena completed his personal hat-trick on Starspangledemblem in the last.
Only seven runners lined up in the sprint feature, with multiple Gr1 winner Copper Parade lumping 62kgs and having his third attempt at winning this event after two consecutive seconds. History was not going to be kind to him!
Karl Zechner – good ride from the front
With punters backing Unannounced into favourite at 15 to 10 and marginally ahead of Copper Parade(18/10), his stablemate Sir Duke was freely available at 13 to 1.
Yoshie was full of herself, and as the only lady in the line-up she was entitled to push her luck and take her time behind the pens. But this did her prospects no good and she was to pay the price, finishing out of the money.
Zechner had Sir Duke out quickly as Unannounced found himself outpaced early as Yoshie chased the leader, just ahead of Copper Parade.
Going into the final 400m Sir Duke continued to gallop powerfully as Copper Parade found his weight telling, with Unannounced taking his time to fire.
At the 200m Sir Duke had it in the bag and he extended to win going away by 2,25 engths in a time of 67,43 secs.
Copper Parade ran a decent enough prep ahead of the Computaform Sprint, while Unannounced was not disgraced in third.
The consistent Sir Duke has now won 8 races with 8 places from his 19 starts. Three of his wins were achieved in the first part of his career when based with Dean Kannemeyer out of Milnerton in the Cape. He looks to have plenty in the tank yet and is a versatile sort.
Sir Duke was bred by the late Roy Eckstein and is a 4yo gelded son of Trippi out of the one-time winning Captain Al mare, Jenna.
He was purchased on the Cape Premier Yearling Sale Book 1 for R450 000.
Get well soon Tara!
