While a mostly unannounced switch from the turf to the polytrack didn’t exactly enhance the prospects of the double feature meeting at Fairview on Friday, local champion trainer Gavin Smith and his longstanding owner Vicky Veeramootoo celebrated the arrival of a really promising looking 3yo on an entertaining afternoon.
With the well-regarded Cape raiders King Regent (14-10) and Port Louis (18-10) expected to dominate matters, it was the Smith local Perfection (5-1), a big son of Kingmambo stallion Ideal World, who made a mockery of the ratings with a dominant end-to-end victory to capture the R250 000 Listed East Cape Guineas.
Perfection (JP van der Merwe) strides to a good win (Pic – Pauline Herman)
JP van der Merwe did the honours for his father-in-law and hardly raised a sweat as Perfection made every post a winning one to score a facile 3,75 length victory in a time of 99,53 secs.
Brett Crawford’s Port Louis had every chance in the six horse field, but was outclassed by the winner, with the consistent King Regent appearing outpaced early and well beaten a further 1,75 lengths back in third.
Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, the winner is out of the Argentinian-bred Not For Sale mare Quintessential.
A R150 000 National Yearling Sale graduate, Perfection made it 4 wins with 3 places from 8 starts for stakes of R332 810.
The move to inject R500 000 into the Pick 6 pool failed to reach the R3 million target, with the exotic reaching R2 606 579. The surface switch no doubt contributed to that.
