Drier Lands Big Scottsville Double

Trainer Dennis Drier reigned over Scottsville on Saturday when he broke Charles Laird’s stranglehold on the R1 million Tsogo Sun Sprint with Captain Of All, now regarded as the leading male sprinter in South Africa.

Laird’s defending champion Normanz finished eighth. He had also won the G1 race in 2012 and 2013 with Delago Deluxe and Contador, all owned like Captain Of All, by Ingrid and Markus Jooste.

The lightly raced Captain Of All is now a dual G1 winner and is unbeaten in five starts over 1200m, sealing his future career as a stallion by beating a strong field on handicap terms with a blistering turn of foot at the 400m under Sean Cormack.

Captain Of All skipped away and beat the strong finishing Gulf Storm by 1.25 lengths in a time of 1.09.17 for the 1200m.

It was Cormack’s tenth G1 at Scottsville and continued his great association with Captain Of All, having ridden him in all his 11 outings.

“He is the best sprinter in South Africa,” Cormack said. “I wasn’t concerned that he would be lumping topweight and it panned out well.”

Jooste Racing Manager Derek Brugman confirmed that Captain Of All has secured himself a career at stud now that he has won six races with four places from his 11 starts for stakes of R1.783 million.

Drier also continued his domination of the R600,000 Tsogo Sun Medallion for two-year-olds, having won the G1 race three years running with Potent Power (2012), Captain Of All (2013) and Guiness (2014) including the last two for the Joostes.

This year he started the Joostes’ colt Seventh Plain and he colt justified favouritism by winning impressively by 2.5 lengths.

Drier was on a high after his G1 double and the return of Captain Of All after he missed most of his 3YO season.

“Thanks to the owners for their patience. It is frustrating when you have something special and missed most of his three year old season.

“He needed the long break and has done fantastically. It is a tribute to our team back home.”

The Sean Tarry-trained mare Carry On Alice gave her stud value a huge boost with a G1 win in the R600,000 City Of Pietermaritzburg Fillies Sprint.

She won by 1.75 lengths, turning the tables on Mike De Kock’s Cape Flying Championship and Computaform Sprint winner Alboran Sea.

Carry On Alice has won five races from 14 starts with 7 places and boosted her earnings to R1.898 million.

De Kock won the fourth of the G1 races with Australian-bred Entisaar when she franked the SA Fillies Nursery form by winning the R600,000 Allan Robertson Championship for two-year-old fillies.

Entisaar, by More Than Ready and sold as yearling in Sydney for $A300,000 to Sheikh Hamdan, had a wall of horses in front of her but when a gap opened she dashed through and despite racing very greenly went on to record her third win from four career starts.

De Kock made it a double after he had won the race last year with Alboran Sea.