Ahoy Captain! Sherman Brown drives Club Captain out to win the Summer Speedsters (JC Photos)
The Captain Al mare Club Captain made a mockery of the handicapper’s ratings when she came out with guns blazing to win the R125 000 Summer Speedsters run on the Vaal sand 1000m last Thursday. Her win was to be the first leg of a lovely feature double for trainer Leon Erasmus and Sherman ‘Bouncing’ Brown.
Cape trainer Joey Ramsden once labelled Brown the ‘poor man’s Anton Marcus’ and while that comment may not sound complimentary on the face of it, the tag amounts to high praise indeed.
The underrated Brown has a unique style and whether the purists and the punters love it or loathe it, the man is highly effective and gets the job done. And in an industry where close on one hundred percent of us so called expert’s personal race experience is limited to the potato sacks or egg and spoon events, who is anybody to criticise?
In a field reduced to just seven runners with the withdrawal of the carded topweight Cante Libre, Geoff Woodruff’s reformed mare Miss October was installed a popular 9 to 10 favourite to land the non black type feature spoils. The daughter of Var had some excellent recent collateral form, but she was never in the hunt and landed up a weak fifth.
The pace was on from the jump and Tiger Quest was quickly out as she led from She’s A Tiger and Club Captain.
With Shiver ‘N Shake ghosting through down the inside , She’s A Tiger and Club Captain moved up in middle of the track going into the final 300m.
Brown had timed his challenge perfectly though and never relented as he drove Club Captain through to hit the front.
Club Captain ran her heart out and won by 1,75 lengths in a time of 58,53 secs. She started at 8 to 1.
Shiver ‘N Shake ran on best of the rest for second, ahead of the vastly improved Goosen runner She’s A Tiger who jumped at any old price.
Brown paid tribute to his boss: “Leon (Erasmus) had her spot on. Our opposition are a talented bunch. But Club Captain is very quick and she kicked on nicely today. We take every race we can,” he said philosophically.
Trainer Leon Erasmus said that he felt that he only had to beat Miss October to win: “I appreciate my first class, honest and decent owners. I am fortunate to have the support,” he said.
Part owner Johan Botha appears to have recovered from his nasty experience at Turffontein last month, when he was apparently robbed on course.
Botha has become something of a legend in the Tellytrack post race interviews with his straight shooting but endearing manner and he races the winning mare with his brother in law.
“Leon (Erasmus) said that I was being over optimistic. But I knew she would win,’ he said before going on to thank everybody from Club Captain’s groom to Dave Mollett.
Bred by Yellow Star Stud, Club Captain is an R80 000 Ready To Run product and took her earnings to R400 850.
This was her fifth win with 10 places from her 42 starts.
