The lady trainers dominated the opening feature event at Turffontein on Summer Cup day when Ashley Fortune’s Winter Smoke ran on powerfully to beat Candice Dawson’s Gallic Princess in the R100 000 World Sports Betting Gr3 Magnolia Handicap.
The projected Pick 6 pool of R20 million fell short of the advertised target, reaching a ‘disappointing’ R14 591 689, with 1 143 052.74 combinations going through and a minimum dividend of R12-80 after the opener.
Calvin Habib has Winter Smoke out front as Gallic Princess and Gavin Lerena battle on (Pic -JC Photos)
Under leaden grey skies and with steady rain falling, Calvin Habib rode a cracker on the stakes placed galloper, who enjoyed her handy 52kgs and kept on strongly at 10-1 to hold the year older Gallic Princess (9-2) to win by three quarters of a length in a time 68,06 secs.
Grant Maroun’s longshot Double ‘O’ Eight (20-1) stayed on nicely a half length back in third, with KZN raider Linear (40-1) running a cracker and kicking the quartet in fourth.
The 2-1 favourite Ecstatic Green may have been found out by the underfoot conditions and ran downfield, and 6,25 lengths off the winner.
Winter Smoke brought a century of winners up for trainer Ashley Fortune.
A winner of 3 races with 3 places from 6 starts, the promising Winter Smoke took her stakes earnings to R202 625.
A R150 000 National Yearling Sale graduate, Winter Smoke was bred by Richard Fitzgerald from the former Equus Champion Sprinter What A Winter (Western Winter) and is out of the one-time winner Chatanooga Chuchu (Cataloochee).
