Paul Matchett had a red-letter day at Turffontein on Saturday, saddling three out of the five Listed race winners and reminding everyone of the considerable horsemanship skills that lurk in the mid-table of South Africa’s training ranks.

Matchett has long been seen as a wizard with juveniles and he reaffirmed that status by scoring in both two-year-old features on the card, the Storm Bird Stakes (in a dead-heat) and the Ruffian Stakes – with Twilight Moon and Basadi Faith respectively.

Both those races were over 1000m, confirming the former Zimbabwean’s other area of expertise, namely sprints. He further polished that reputation with a stunning win in the 1000m Bauhinia Stakes for fillies and mares with See You Tyger.

There are only so many rich patrons to go around in local racing, many a good trainer must make the best of inexpensive horses and Matchett vividly underlined how it can be done with this treble.

Twilight Moon, a colt by Wylie Hall cost R20,000 – a trifling amount in today’s market – while See You Tyger, a three-year-old by Where’s That Tiger, was bought for R30,000. Juvenile filly Basadi Faith did not go through a sales ring, but was acquired before her sire Master Of My Fate started making waves so is unlikely to have been hugely expensive.

Twilight Moon came into the Storm Bird as a maiden, facing five one-time winners. He had finished a promising second in his lone outing, but the 14-1 starting price suggested he still needed to do a bit of maturing.

Rising star Dennis Schwarz got the maximum out of his mount to share the spoils with 11-10 hot favourite Frosted Gold, an import from New Zealand from the Mike de Kock stable.

Basadi Faith had won her first two races impressively but was allowed to go off at 6-1 – thanks to the presence in the field of De Kock’s highly regarded filly Gin Fizz, who had won her only start by the proverbial street and was backed down to 1-4 for this.

Devin Habib did duty for Matchett and their filly romped home 4.50 lengths ahead of the favourite.

Jarryd Penny partnered See You Tyger (14-1) in the Bauhinia and found himself in an unpromising situation 400m out, lying last of the 12 runners, behind a wall of horses. The rider switched his line of attack towards the inside and told the filly to get busy. Which she did in some style, flying up to pass 7-2 favourite Pretty Penny and win by 0.60 lengths.

Pretty Penny is trained by Alec Laird, who had already landed the Listed Oaks Trial with the emerging talent of Bize. The daughter of Mambo In Seattle was an impressive winner on debut over 1600m at the Vaal and looked ever-so-assured in galloping to victory over the testing Turffontein 2000m.

The fifth Listed race on the card, the Derby Trial over 2000m, went the way of Tyrone Zackey-trained three-year-old Gift For The Gap, another Master Of My Fate offspring, who came from near the tail of the field with a powerful gallop to claim his fourth victory from 13 starts and further his claims to being a stayer of some note.

Tabnews