Trainer Justin Snaith and his team rattled off five wins on Sun Met Day, including three prized Gr1s and Snaith Racing tweeted: “The 2018 Sun Met will go down as our most memorable race day yet.”
Their opening Grade 1 win of the day was the Cape Flying Championship, a race marred by a false start and a lengthy delay caused by starting stall delinquent Tevez. This eventually led to all of joint favourite Naafer, Search Party and Olympian having to be withdrawn.
That left Captain Al’s son Sergeant Hardy as clear market leader, and he remained undefeated over 1000m with an impressive virtually pillar-to-post win under regular pilot Bernard Fayd’herbe.
CTS graduates filled the first four places with Trip To Heaven second, last year’s CTS1200 winner Live Life in third and Brutal Force in fourth.
Trip To Heaven jumped on terms and was always within striking distance but a Grade 1 win continues to elude him, and he scored a fourth runner-up up berth at this level.
This was a first Grade 1 winner for Oscar de W Foulkes, who owns Sergeant Hardy with his mother Veronica of Normandy Stud. He has always had a soft spot for the ultra-game campaigner and added tongue in cheek that he “is now sorry that he gelded him”.
Snaith paid tribute to the “gallant horse with a big heart, despite his well-documented breathing problems’’. Sergeant Hardy failed the vet’s scope at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale in 2015 and was bought back by the Foulkes family who decided to race him themselves.
Fayd’Herbe said: “I knew he’d outpace them over 1000m and he thoroughly deserved this win today.” -Turf Talk.