Robyn Klaasen and a colt hungry for success

Purple Pitcher is on a direct course for the Hollywoodbets Durban July following his remarkable victory in the TAB SA Derby at Turffontein on Saturday.

His trainer Robyn Klaasen is a young woman in a hurry.

She had her first winner as recently as mid-2021 and has since quickly entrenched herself among a feisty band of emerging female conditioners – the likes of Candice Bass-Robinson, Candice Dawson, Wendy Whitehead, and Kelly Mitchley.

She – and they – bring the sort of glamour and youthful zest South African racing needs to draw in new devotees. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wizened old blokes in cloth caps on the gallops of a freezing morning, but they sure ain’t sexy.

Klaasen said on Monday the 2024 July over 2200m has been her long-term goal for Purple Pitcher, with last month’s SA Classic triumph the short-term goal. The Derby marathon – which the three-year-old clinched after a brave, epic, 500m duel down to the line against two doughty opponents – proved to be “a bonus” in the stable’s planning. (It must be said jockey Kabelo Matsunyane did brilliantly well to keep the colt rolling.)

Origins of Purple Pitcher

Winning the final two legs of the Triple Crown meant Purple Pitcher came as close as any contemporary to landing the prestige series this year, with Klaasen revealing her charge had been “a little under-done” when fourth in Leg 1, the Gauteng Guineas in February.

Purple Pitcher is likely to tackle the Grade 1 Daily News 2000 in the lead-up to South Africa’s most famous race on the first Saturday in July.

It hasn’t been much mentioned, but a purple pitcher is a carnivorous species of North American flowering plant that eats insects and very small salamanders. The name is quite inventive, with the sire being New Predator and the dam Heliantha, which is a shrub.

Klaasen came by Purple Pitcher when owner Stincky Pooe moved a handful of his horses to her yard about 18 months ago. Pooe had paid R170,000 for him at a yearling sale, enticed by the youngster being a half-brother to his own highly successful race filly Miss Daisy.

As a juvenile, Purple Pitcher raced four times for three place cheques. In Klaasen’s care, turned three, he reeled off five wins on the trot, including in the Dingaans, before that fourth in the Guineas. It was a blip on the record, but then the Classic and the Derby victories on the tough Turffontein track showcased the colt’s whole-hearted character to the full.

Klaasen says she’s lucky to have found such a good racehorse so early in her career, but that neglects to mention she’s had something to do with his seven successes.

‘Learn about racing’

Growing up outside Joburg, Robyn got hooked on horses and horse riding early, participating in show jumping and polocrosse. “But there was always something about racing that fascinated me,” she says.

Ashleigh Hughes, who was running a Joburg satellite yard for Cape Town’s champion trainer Justin Snaith, “let me follow her around and help out, so I could learn about racing”.

Then Robyn landed a job in Gary Alexander’s stable, then one with champion trainer Sean Tarry, and then one with another champion, Paul Peter. She took off for Australia and a position at Gollan Racing in Brisbane before Covid struck and she had to return to Joburg in 2021.

Racing in South Africa was in a perilous state, but Robyn dived in and took out a training licence. At first, most of the boxes she hired at Turffontein were empty, but when the few residents started performing the place started filling up.

Demand shot up after the first big win – Purple Pitcher in the Grade 2 Dingaans in November 2023 – famously the day after Robyn gave birth to her first child, Kai.

Incidentally, her first winner, Meteoric at Greyville, was owned by her husband Joshua Peter.