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The Champions Season fortunes of leading Summerveld trainer Dennis Drier took a turn for the better at Greyville on Saturday when his super mare Beach Beauty successfully defended her crown in the G2 Drill Hall Stakes.
It was a welcome change of luck for Drier after last week’s sad news that his outstanding colt Master Of My Fate is unlikely to race again after injuring a tendon and a setback suffered by his top filly ]n]Eventual Angel[/n] that cost her a start in the weekend’s KRA Fillies Guineas.
Those dramas made Beach Beauty’s win a special moment, and was not missed by the crowd who showed their affection for the champion mare after the six-year-old’s fine win over a classy field.
Ridden by Sean Cormack, Beach Beauty let down quickly from fifth at the 300m and crossed the line easing up to record a magnificent sixteenth career victory, the majority of them in graded stakes events.
Australian-bred Rio Carnival ran the race of his life to fly up for second ahead of Capetown Noir and Here Comes Billy.
Both Cormack and trainer Drier paid tribute to the mare, acknowledging that only she could have lifted their spirits after the crushing blow of My Master Of Fate’s career ending injury.
However Drier hinted that Beach Beauty is now probably only one or two races away from retirement herself.
Master Of My Fate was retired after he pulled up from a workout at Summerveld last Tuesday with a serious tendon injury.
He was set to have his Champions Season pipe opener in the Drill Hall Stakes and had been sent out for a routine workout on the sand.
“He must have just put a foot in the wrong place and pulled a tendon,” Drier reported.
“The tendon had a clean hole the size of a bullet right through the middle. This is a tragedy for everybody in the yard.
“Unfortunately these big horses like him with huge actions that have so much speed only need to put a foot wrong on any track and a lot can go wrong.
“It’s a punch below the belt to all of us.”
Master Of My Fate was identified by his late owner Andrew Papageorgiou as the only horse he wanted at the 2011 National Yearling Sale and was so determined to get the colt that he eventually secured him for R3 million.
After his passing the colt raced in his son Nico’s colours, starting his career in May last year as a late three-year-old as he had split a hoof as a two-year-old.
He lost his debut race but then reeled off six successive wins including the G2 Premier Trophy and G2 Peninsula Handicap at Kenilworth before an unlucky fifth in his last race as favourite in the G1 J&B Met.
Master Of My Fate, by the great South African sire Jet Master, will go to stud.
Drier’s highly regarded filly Eventual Angel injured herself in her box but the trainer is hopeful it is not a long term problem.
“It is not a serious injury, but the Guineas only comes once a year and it was her main mission,” he said.
In her absence the Brett Crawford-trained Maybe Yes recorded a fluent win in the G2 Fillies Guineas, beating Not Sulking and In The Fast Lane.
Maybe Yes had shown progressive form in Cape Town, winning three of her six starts there and finishing a promising third in the Prix Du Cap.
However she had missed her prep run when scratched from the Umzimkhulu Stakes three weeks previously and as a result went off as a16/1 chance.
The G2 KRA Guineas over 1600m for the colts turned into a procession for Cape Derby winner Legislate as Justin Snaith's charge powered home three lengths clear of Bezanova and the favourite Captain America.
This was a seriously impressive victory by Legislate, who looks set to go on to even bigger things during the Champions Season this winter.
The race was a warm-up for the G1 Daily News 2000 and that race may see him clash with Triple Crown winner Louis The King and Captain America, who was having his first outing since finishing second to his rival in the Cape Derby three months ago.
