Horse of the Year Variety Club gave notice that he may be the horse to beat in the G1 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate and G1 J & B Met over the summer when he gave many of his likely rivals a caning in the G2 Green Point Stakes over 1600m at Kenilworth.
Photo by Liesl King
It was a great day for his trainer Joey Ramsden as he also prepared the first three home in the Listed Durbanville Cup over 3200m.
Variety Club once again used his phenomenal gate speed to good effect and was quickly taken to the front by his rider Anton Marcus after stablemate The Helsman struggled to fulfil his intended role as pacemaker.
When none of his rivals decided to take him on it was virtually race over as Variety Club has a terrific turn of foot and was always going to be hard to catch in the short Old Course straight.
Jackson charged into second from the back but was still 2.5 lengths shy at the line while Master Plan showed his class to run third over a trip short of his best.
The champion three-year-old filly Princess Victoria was a big disappointment as she faded away tamely to finish eighth.
Variety Club, a four-year-old by Var, has now won 11 of his 16 starts including three G3 races, three G2s and two G1 events and has never finished further back than second since turning three.
Ramsden said he was a pleasure to train, pointing out that he could always be relied on to run to his best.
“You can set your clock by him,” he said.
Ramsden was on a high after his three runners filled the placings in Saturday’s Listed Durbanville Cup.
Winning jockey Karis Teetan bucked riding instructions on Badger Lake in a slowly run race by taking the initiative and choosing to go out and do his own thing by going to the front from the 1600m.
It did the trick as it got Badger Lake back into winning ways to beat stablemates Crown Of Gold and A Boy Named Sue.
Badger Lake is now the winner of 6 of his 25 starts and with confidence now restored is likely to be aimed at the G3 Cape Summer Stayers Handicap on December 22 before the J&B Reserve Stayers on Met day.
Ramsden said Badger Lake had put up some phenomenal work in the build up and added that all three of his runners had done plenty of mileage on the treadmill.
Badger Lake had only run once beyond 2000m before when unplaced over 2450m.
The disappointment of the race was Gold Cup winner In Writing who was never in the hunt and languished at the rear for most of the trip.
* HILL Fifty Four capped a memorable 48 hours for owners Markus and Ingrid Jooste when he streaked clear to win the G3 Algoa Cup, Port Elizabeth's biggest trophy, at Fairview on Sunday.
His win gave the leading owners three winning cheques in feature races totalling close to half a million rand after Saturday's big double with their champion Variety Club and part ownership in Badger Lake at Kenilworth on Saturday.
The Joostes are South Africa’s leading owners in terms of numbers and probably pure buying power as well.
The Algoa Cup was the feature of the Fairview Festival Of Racing weekend which kicked off on Friday with a win by Way Clear in the Listed Racing Association Stakes over 1600m.
Way Clear was the fourth winner of the day for another top owner Fred Crabbia, who also won the supporting feature, the November Stakes with Bois De Var.
