Barbosa wins the Listed Umngeni Handicap
Trainer Dennis Drier and jockey Sean Cormack opened and closed the Super Saturday meeting, with a Gr1 disappointment in the middle. The performance of Barbosa in winning the R150 000 Listed Umngeni Handicap would have perked up the team spirit dramatically.
The Lammerskraal bred and owned Space Launch is a handsome son of Jet Master and he was a convincing winner of the first race to give the succesful Drier-Cormack duo a confidence booster for a big day.
Things didn’t quite pan out as planned thereafter, but under the lights after a long day, Barbosa came home strongly. A decent sort and very effective up to 1200m, he was easy to back at 6 to 1 and secured his peak career win and a first polytrack victory in good style and against some proven quality opposition.
Viva La Var was fast early and had many of them off the bit as Stuart Randolph pushed him out into the final 300m.
But finishing with a sustained effort, Barbosa came forward up the inside and went on to beat Viva La Var by 1,75 lengths in a time of 56,75 secs.
Viva La Var showed plenty of pace but failed to go on with it, while the fancied Brutal Force was outpaced early but stayed on into third.
The Mike De Kock runners Moofeed and Tiger Territory may just as well have stayed home – poorly drawn, they never had a shout and finished last and second last.
Barbosa is a 6yo gelded son of Captain Al out of the seven-time winning Best By Test mare, Fine Feather.
He was bred by Jane Trotter, who also races him in a nice partnership.
Barbosa took his stakes earnings to R472 875 with his 6 wins and 6 places from 19 starts and should continue to earn.
