Calypso Beat Smart on Second Start

[ Article originally published at SaHRacing . https://www.sahracing.com/index/contents/news/29558]

“I got out smartly and at the 600m she found her feet, pricked her ears and took the bit without me asking – always a good sign,” Cheyne reported…

Calypso Beat went into the notebooks at Kenilworth on Saturday even though it was his jockey who stole the show, amazing his audience with one trick after another like a conjurer at a children’s party.

It was straightforward enough for Greg Cheyne on the R1 million Querari in the 1 000m maiden fillies. The 57-20 favourite took an early lead and proved far more superior to the opposition than the eventual two-length verdict would suggest.

“I got out smartly and at the 600m she found her feet, pricked her ears and took the bit without me asking – always a good sign,” Cheyne reported.

Brett Crawford, who has handled more stars than a pop singer’s agent, was impressed, saying: “I think she has a future and she is going to be much better when the ground is on top.”

Cheyne teamed up with Crawford again five races later to take the Interbet.co.za Handicap on Ikebana for the Gujadhur Mauritian training family. But this was genius stuff. Well inside the final furlong, with Grant van Niekerk on It Is What It Is two lengths clear and showing no sign of stopping, Cheyne switched the 3-1 favourite out of the narrowing gap between the leader and the rails and challenged on the other side. Amazingly, his mount ate up a seemingly impossible amount of ground and swept past to win a shade comfortably.

“Grant got first run on me and then he closed the gap,” Cheyne related. “People might say I was a bit cheeky at the end but I could feel the momentum – Grant’s filly had come to the end of her run while I was going away.”