Last season's unbeaten champion two-year-old Delago Deluxe has been transferred from the Charles Laird stable in Johannesburg to Mike Bass in Cape Town.
Photo by Gold Circle
Bass said: “The owners have sent him to me to have a go at the Bloodstock SA Cape Guineas but we will have to see if he stays that far. I don't know whether he will.”
Delago Deluxe is an Australian-bred colt who was purchased by leading owners Markus and Ingrid Jooste as a yearling in Australia for $550,000.
He won all his four starts for Laird including the G1 Maverick Medallion at Scottsville in May and was named champion two-year-old colt at last month's Equus Awards ceremony.
He is the highest-rated three-year-old on 107, two points clear of Potala Palace and Princess Victoria.
The son of champion sire Encosta De Lago has good prospects of staying a mile as his dam won three times up to a mile.
Bass has been champion Cape trainer for each the last five seasons but the Cape Guineas is ne of the few big races in South Africa to have eluded him.
Meanwhile Nysean Bolt, the Winter Derby winner, has wrenched a knee thwarting plans to send him to Turffontein for the Sansui Summer Cup.
Greg Ennion, who owns as well as trains the gelding, said: “He was going to be sold and I put him into a paddock where he hurt himself.
“The deal was then cancelled but he will go back into work in a few week's time.”
The Milnerton trainer reports that Mystic Moon is looking at Group One targets.
“I'm not going to rush him now - the season has hardly begun - but top of the list for him is the J&B Met.
“There is also the Queen's Plate but I want to find something further than a mile.”
