. South Africa’s reigning Horse Of The Year Legal Eagle stole the spotlight from the fillies when he ramped up his summer campaign with a game win in the G2 Green Point Stakes at Kenilworth.
Fresh off an impressive comeback sprint when third to stablemate Trip To Heaven, Legal Eagle was all the rage for Saturday's 1600m feature and jumped the even money favourite.
Legal Eagle, last year’s SA Derby winner, was always travelling well before jockey Anton Marcus asked him for his effort 300m out. He duly quickened up nicely before Marinaresco laid down a threat in a telling preview for January's G1 L'Ormarins Queen's Plate.
In the end Legal Eagle won by 0.4 lengths from Marinaresco, who lost nothing in defeat. The ever reliable Captain America, who won this race a year ago, was third but nearly five lengths of the winner with his stable mate Sail South filling fourth.Legal Eagle won the 2016 Queen's Plate with the Sean Tarry-trained gelding set for a repeat after this win took his record to eight wins from 14 starts.
The 2017 Queen’s Plate will be run at Kenilworth on January 7.The Mayfair Speculator-owned filly Just Sensual an 11-2 shot for the R1 million 1600m classic with last season's G1 Thekwini Stakes winner Querari Falcon jumping as the 7-2 favourite.
Undefeated Australian-bred filly Quick Brown Fox had her share of supporters as did Safe Harbour while the impressive recent winner Sail was allowed to drift in the betting due to doubts about her overcoming a wide draw.Recent G3 Starling Stakes winner She's A Giver made the running with Querari Falcon well placed ahead of Just Sensual while Safe Harbour raced towards the back of the field.
At the 200m Safe Harbour looked to set to give her champion trainer Sean Tarry yet another feature race win only to get nabbed before the post by Just Sensual .
The latter went on to record a neck win with the favourite Querari Falcon third and Sail fourth.Bred by Klawervlei Stud, Just Sensual has now won three of only four starts and has banked R727 500.
• The Brett Crawford trained Search Party justified sustained betting support to lift the spoils in Saturday's G2 World Sports Betting Merchants at Kenilworth.The four-year-old was backed from 25-1 into 7-2 and duly obliged to give his in-form trainer another feature race win this season.
The Merchants was marred by several high profile scratchings with the G1 winners Red Ray and Real Princess both late withdrawals.Search Party went out to make all and duly did, as the field split up into two groups.
He had to fend off a strong challenge from the talented Silicone Valley by half a length with Captain Alfredo third.Former dual Merchants winner Tevevz was fifth giving lumps of weight to the four in front of him.
Search Party has now won four of just 11 outings and has earnings of more than R400 000 to his credit.