WILLIAM Longsword sprang a 22/1 surprise in the Grand Parade Cape Guineas at Kenilworth last Saturday when all expectation was that victory would go to another in the Markus Jooste colours, the 3/1 favourite Table Bay.

The stated plan was that that one of the Jooste longshots, the New Approach colt A New Dawn, would set a searching pace to allow Table Bay to sit further back than he had done when unexpectedly beaten in last month’s Selangor but this one was scratched on the eve of the race and Table Bay made his own running.

Two furlongs out, though, Anton Marcus began to look decidedly uneasy on the favourite and he had no answer when MJ Byleveld pressed the button on William Longsword, who resisted Gold Standard’s late challenge to score by half a length with the favourite over three lengths farther back third.

Trainer Joey Ramsden would not answer questions about the change in tactics (“I don’t want to talk about it”) but Marcus said: “I thought mine had every chance. I waited and I nursed but as soon as I was challenged I knew.”

William Longsword, who had suffered a serious over-reach when only sixth in the Selangor, was winning for the fifth time in seven starts and is by highly successful local stallion Captain Al out of a mare by the Sadler’s Wells-sired Grand Prix de Paris winner Fort Wood.

He is trained by Vaughan Marshall, who was winning the race for the fourth time in his long career, and it was a second Guineas for Byleveld, who recalled that his 2008 scorer Le Drakkar had a similarly wide draw.

“I had to commit early and fortunately I got there for nothing,” he said. “It was ideal having Table Bay just in front of me because I knew he was the horse to beat and, when we got to the 400 metre mark, I could see that he was under more pressure than I was. Once I went clear I knew it would take a good horse to come and beat me.”

The winner was bred at Klawervlei (part-owned by Jooste) and the intention is that he will stand there. “He is a half-brother to Group 1 winner Real Princess so he has a stallion’s pedigree and he is one of the best looking horses you will ever see,” enthused racing manager Derek Brugman. “We will now look after him and race him extremely sparingly with an eye to his stallion career.”

The runner-up is in the Sun Met on January 28th. “We were happy with the result - cowboys don’t cry,” said trainer Glen Kotzen. “But they turned it into a sprint and the time was nearly three seconds slower than the Selangor.”

Bela-Bela and Silver Mountain, the two best three-year-old fillies of last season, reappeared in one of the supporting races with the former getting up close home in the seven-furlong contest and Silver Mountain making up a lot of ground in the closing stages to take a close fourth. The pair meet again in the Paddock Stakes in a fortnight’s time and after that Bele-Bela’s connections will decided whether to go for the Met or stick to her own sex in the Majorca.

The Silver Mountain camp seem quietly confident about future clashes. “She came back into training quite late and had a rushed preparation,” said Candice Bass-Robinson. “But this run will bring her on.”

Trainers’ comments

There has been a major controversy over an instruction to trainers to provide comments on all horses running for the first time in order to guide punters.

Some trainers have refused to comply but Justin Snaith has taken the opposite view and posted comments on many of last Saturday’s runners (not just the newcomers) on Facebook. “You can’t have punters kept in the dark - without them there would be no racing,” said his brother and business partner Jonathan.

Frankel yearlings

There are three fillies and a colt by Frankel in next month’s Cape Premier Yearling Sale. All are sold by Klawervlei, whose ex-Coolmore manager John Koster said: “We bought the mares in Europe, put them in foal to Southern Hemisphere time and brought them out here.” The stud is also selling 10 by Rock Of Gibraltar.