Progress Plate winners look worth following

After gelding and a wind operation, Sand And Sea looks ready to fulfill his early potential.

This Grade 1 winning juvenile came back after seven months off to win a competitive looking five-horse Progress Plate at Kenilworth over 1200m on Saturday by a comfortable 2.25 lengths despite racing very keen early on.

Favourite Pleasedtomeetyou seemed to be travelling easily out front until the 200m pole, but found nothing under pressure, and faded out to finish a very dis-appointing fourth.

Sand And Sea had raced handy and strode on under a hands and heels ride to win more or less as he pleased.

At this stage is seems unclear as to whether he will take up his place in the Grade 2 Merchants here on Saturday.

Anton Marcus was pleased, saying it was “exciting to see him producing what he’s capable of”.

Dennis Drier thanked Summerveld Equine Hospital for ex-pertly doing his wind surgery, and his runaway start to his latest Cape campaign shows no sign of abating.

Later in the equivalent fillies Progress, Nous Voila showed that her runs over further and around the bend were all wrong with a dominant start to finish win.

Allowed to go off at 10-1 behind popular choice Temple Grafin (9-10), Candice Bass-Robinson’s imposing Judpot filly made full use of a handy 54kg and set decent fractions throughout.She never looked like being caught and the favourite made no real impression with the eventual margin an easy 2.25 lengths.

Bass-Robinson revealed she “was quietly confident as I know what her ability is.

I’ll keep her up the straight for the foreseeable fu-ture”.Defi nitely one to follow in the coming fillies sprint features.

A couple of Justin Snaith three-year-olds marked them-selves down as having good potential.

Ladder Man scored readily in Race 3, a Maiden Plate over 1600m, a performance made more impressive by the fact that he had got loose at the start and made his way all the back to the parade ring before being returned.

The next race was a MR 71 over the same trip. Belgarion won on debut only a fortnight ago, and underlined his rich potential with another very comfortable win.

Snaith indicated that both were “very smart, and will probably be aimed at the Politician Stakes”.

This is a Listed event for three-year-olds run on 5 January over 1800m, and is o en a good pointer towards the Cape Derby on Sun Met day.

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