A dream come true for Young Apprentice

The Investec Day Of Dreams proved aptly named when the small Cape Town yard of Glen Puller landed by far the richest race in South African history, the CTS Million Dollar, with the Klawervlei Stud-bred colt Illuminator, who was
produced with a perfectly timed run by the apprentice Heavalon van der Hoven.

The young jockey would have been pinching himself to have just landed a ride in the big race as he was a replacement for the originally declared rider Weichong Marwing. Van der Hoven was obviously not able to claim his usual 2,5kg and didn’t need to.

Illuminator’s owners Francois Carruthers and Ian Robinson are staunch supporters of Cape racing so were thoroughly deserving winners.

The hot favourite the Mike Bass-trained filly Silver Mountain started 17/10 and ran on from a handy position, but was overtaken late and beaten by The Vaughan Marshall-trained Victorious Jay finished third ahead of two fancied KZN raiders, the Dennis Drier-trained Seventh Plain and the Charles Laird-trained Exit Here.

The atmosphere was electric on course and virtually every member of the crowd were thrilled for the winning connections.

The pace was furious from the off as predicted and Illuminator was covered from the crosswind as he was switched to the outside when coming from some way back in the field.

Illuminator cost just R180,000 at the Sales and earned a cheque in today’s big race of over R8 million!

Earlier Justin Snaith won the Gr 1 R1 million Investec Cape Derby with the 16/1 outsider It’s My Turn, who was ironically ridden by Piere Strydom, who lost the ride on Politician Stakes winner Black Arthur to Snaith stable
jockey Bernard and the latter duly started hot favourite in the Derby.

Strydom delivered It’s My Turn on the outside to win by a comfortable two lengths and it was the second time in three runnings of the big race that Snaith had win it with a son of Dynasty. The strongly fancied Gr 1 Grand Parade Cape Guineas runner up Brazuca was pushed along at the back of the field most of the way but then ran on strongly to take second.

Politician Stakes runner up Marinaresco finished third.

The Mike Bass-trained Trippi filly Inara retained her Gr 1 R1 million Klawervlei Majorca Stakes crown, overtaking the odds-on favourite Same Jurisdiction late in the race to win by 0,75 lengths. The winner’s stablemate Lanner Flacon flew for third.

The first three placed horses are all owned by Drakenstein Stud and they also bred the first and third-placed horses