Alan Greeff and Varsfontein Stud celebrated a feature double at Fairview on Friday with the Fire Away gelding My Best Shot making history in scintillating style as the first horse to win the local ‘Triple Crown’ and bank a R250 000 bonus in the process.
Richard Fourie steers My Best Shot to a historic win (Pic -Pauline Herman)
The Nelson Mandela Bay Racing Sophomore Challenge is a testing series for three-year-olds, which comprises the 1400m Ibhayi Stakes, the 1600m East Cape Guineas, and culminates in the R350 000 World Sports Betting Listed East Cape Derby, which was run over 2400m on Friday.
It is no mean feat to win at feature level from 1400m to 2400m, but My Best Shot proved equal to the task and set himself up for East Cape Horse Of The Year honours as he swept through down the middle under Richard Fourie at 11-10 to beat Cape raider Ardabil (9-4) by 5,25 lengths in a time of 148,42 secs.
A stablemate to the winner and the first filly home, First Wish (25-1) ran on into third all of 1,75 lengths off the runner-up, with another Greeff charge in Mister Speaker (25-1) capping the quartet.
Raced in partnership of racing stalwarts in Nick & Val McFall, Greg Blank, Gary Piha, Hilton Yutar, Darryl Yutar, and the trainer and his wife, Glennifer, the winner registered his 9th victory with 5 places from 15 starts for stakes of R847 975. This total does not include the R250 000 Triple Crown bonus,
A R120 000 Cape Yearling Sale graduate, My Best Shot is a half-brother to the region’s Champion 2yo colt of 2022/23 Questor, and was bred by Varsfontein Stud.
He is a gelded son of Wilgerbosdrift’s War Front stallion Fire Away out of the twice-winning Fort Wood mare, Gypsy Madonna.
We could yet see a Hollywoodbets Durban July supplementary entry!
