Tarry heads for record season

Sun Met winner Whisky Baron is the leading ‘non-dollar’ earner so far this season. He has won five races but as he heads off to campaign overseas he could be overtaken by Legal Legal.


Sean Tarry looks well on his way to break his own record this season as far as stakes earned is concerned.

At this stage of the season runners from the Tarry stable have garnered R21,804,850 while last season he amassed a total of R27,999,562. If one looks at the position last season as at 5 April, horses from the yard had pulled in R16,464,712. That means in the final four months of the season (the season ends on 1 July) Tarry increased his earnings by around 70%.

Should runners from the yard produce at the same level this time, he could come out with a remarkable R37 million in stake money for the year.

Looking back at his seven winners on Saturday, Tarry sad­dled 23 runners and they earned R2,294,375 in stakes. Mike de Kock, who came away with the winners of the Grade 1 SA Clas­sic and Wilgerbosdrift SA Clas­sic, earned R2,052,250 on the day. However, if on compares winning stakes alone De Kock’s two win­ners earned R1,875,000 while Tarry’s seven came away with R1,211,250.

Tarry has had 146 winners so far this season with Justin Snaith next best 116, followed by Brett Crawford on 73 and De Kock on 67.

With his victories on the Grade 1 Cape Guineas and especially the $500,000 CTS 1600, William Longsword is highest earning runner this season with R4.065 million. Obviously second on the list is the winner of the other $500,000 event, the CTS 1200, and that was Live Life who earned R3,661,875.

Of the horses who did not race in those dollar events, the top earner is Sun Met winner Whisky Baron who has banked R3,254,375 for his owners. He is unbeaten in five starts this season but is on his way overseas so his local total could be passed by fourth-placed Legal Eagle who is currently on R1,812,500, especially if he can win the R4-million Premier’s Champion Challenge over 2000m at Turffontein next month.

Gavin Lerena may have been having a bad run of late but he still leads the race for the jockeys’ title. Lerena has ridden 115 winners, eight clear of Greg Cheyne with Anton Marcus third on 104.

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