Paul Peter on his Triple Tiara hero – and Mr Ferraris

Paul Peter had just won the coveted Triple Tiara with the filly Summer Pudding – with a disruptive lockdown break between the second and third legs – but the trainer was taking no credit for himself.

“This is all down to Mr Ferraris,” he declared immediately after the SA Oaks at Turffontein on Saturday – referring to the elder statesman of Highveld horse racing who has become an advisor in the Peter yard since handing in his training licence about a year ago.

This week, Peter explained that, at the time of his retirement, veteran master Ormond Ferraris occupied the Turffontein barns alongside his and the two men became good friends – one a racing veteran of 70 years, the other a young gun making his mark.

“Since he packed it in, he’s been coming to the track every morning to watch my horses gallop and give advice,” said Peter, who enjoyed a hugely successful Derby Day on Saturday with four winners on a 10-race card.

“After all those years, Mr Ferraris can’t stop coming to the track in the mornings. He gets up every day at 3am and what’s he going to do at that time? He’s incredibly knowledgeable. We are so lucky to have him. He can read horses’ minds, so he knows exactly what they need,” said Peter.

“When the lockdown happened, we were a bit panicky about what to do with horses’ fitness, but he just said: ‘Don’t worry son, I know what to do.’ And what he did was just perfect.

“He is a genius with stayers; he gets them super fit without going over the top. He can time it to the minute!” enthused the disciple.

Summer Pudding’s path was a case in point. After her victory in the SA Classic in early March and the subsequent shutdown of all racing, she was kept ticking over but “hit a flat spot” as the resumption of action loomed. Unflustered, Ferraris made a few tweaks to the filly’s routine and she bounced back to her best.

The rest is history – South African racing history’s third Triple Tiara, in the footsteps of Igugu and Cherry On The Top. The latter, of course, was trained by none other than Ormond Ferraris, with her 2013 Oaks triumph giving him his 10th success in the venerable classic.

Alongside his 10 Oaks trophies, Ferraris has eight for the SA Derby and innumerable other big-race prizes, not to mention two SA champion trainer gongs. He never cracked a Durban July, coming closest with Distinctly, placed second in the infamous 1975 race when Gatecrasher was demoted from first to third.

Summer Pudding was a surprise omission from the list of first entries for this year’s July on Monday. Peter explained that the hard, disrupted Tiara campaign had been tough on the daughter of Silvano and the July was deemed a step too far this year.

“We’ll give her a rest and aim at the Summer Cup and the Sun Met, and maybe the 2021 July after that.”

Peter does have an entry in the 2020 July, namely the three-year-old colt Western Fort, who ran a creditable fourth in the SA Derby on Saturday.

“He was very unlucky; he ran all over the show and still got close to the winner. The penny hasn’t dropped yet but, when it does, we’ll see how talented he is. We are planning to go to Durban for the Daily News 2000 and then keep him at the coast for the July later,” said Peter.

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