Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas

(Group 1)

ONE Stripe convincingly landed odds of 63/100 to give veteran trainer Vaughan Marshall his sixth Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas win at Kenilworth last Saturday.

Gavin Lerena, drawn on the outside, had only three behind him turning for home and two furlongs out he made for the often- faster ground on the stands side.

It proved a decisive move and his mount had no difficulty in beating the Justin Snaith pair Eight On Eighteen and Great Plains by a length and a quarter and a length and a half.

The winner, by the Marshall-trained Met winner One World who last season became champion first season sire with a record 30 individual winners, was bred by Gaynor Rupert’s Drakenstein Stud which was also responsible for the second and third. Lerena, winning this classic for the first time, was particularly bullish about his mount, saying: “What an amazing horse. I think he is going to keep improving. His acceleration is fantastic and, if he can keep his manners in the right place, I am sure he is going to do very well. Certainly Mr Marshall is a maestro!’

Great horse

Marshall, 73, said: “This horse’s father was a great horse and I think he is great as well.”

Personally I thought it was a good performance rather than an outstanding one. We will know more if, as expected, he returns to the Cape Town course to take on the older horses in the King’s Plate at Kenilworth in a fortnight’s time.

Sadly second favourite Heather’s Boy was found to have injured his near-fore tendon after finishing a disappointing fifth and Mike de Kock said: “He will be out for a minimum of six months.”

Juvenile talent

Early juveniles usually get put in their place as the season progresses but Parental Guidance (by Querari out of a Captain Al mare) just might prove an exception as he is a half-brother to last season’s champion two-year-old filly Proceed.

Admittedly the newcomer was only up against six other first-timers in the opener but the 13/2 chance led from halfway under Richard Fourie and came away to win comfortably.

Trainer Paul Reeves said: “The talk was that mine would fall out of the back door – Vaughan had three in it and so did Justin Snaith – but I was quite confident.

“We certainly hadn’t drilled him and I know there is a lot more to come.”

BLACK Minnaloushe, winner of the 2001 Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, is the sire of The Futurist who sprang a 66/1 shock under Anthony Andrews in the Ridgemont Peninsula Handicap. He beat several Met entries and, significantly, the Brett/James Crawford-trained winner had only recently returned to Cape Town from high altitude Johannesburg.

The Storm Cat stallion stood at Ashford in Kentucky early on and shuttled to New Zealand. Main Chance Farms purchased a majority interest from Coolmore in 2006 and the horse moved to South Africa the following year.