Last season’s Equus Champion Two-Year-Old Filly Quid Pro Quo is the undoubted star attraction at this weekend’s 10-race Highveld fixture on Turffontein’s Standside track, on which the first legs of the SA Triple Crown and Wilgerbosdrift Triple Tiara will be run from the 1600m marker on Saturday 1 February.
Barry Irwin’s Team Valor International recently concluded a deal to purchase the Barend Botes-trained Quid Pro Quo from Gerald Kalil who bred the daughter of little-known Jet Master sire, Lance.
A dual Grade 1 winner and two-time Grade 2 scorer, Quid Pro Quo has drawn comparisons to the legendary ‘Galloping Goldmine’ that was Empress Club.
Botes’ stable star became the first filly in history to win the 1200m Grade 1 Allan Robertson Championship, Grade 2 Golden Slipper over 1400m and the Grade 1 Douglas Whyte Premiers Champion Stakes over 1600m during an unprecedented juvenile campaign.
However, she looked better than ever on her Highveld reappearance (after a well-deserved four-month absence) in the Grade 2 Dingaans in her first start as a three-year-old.
Pitted against male rivals for the first time, Quid Pro Quo made light work of her opposition under veteran jockey Piere Strydom who was blown away by her performance. She sauntered to a 2.50-length victory and won with a ton in hand.
Quid Pro Quo, whose long-term future lies abroad, resumes her partnership with Strydom who will don the silks of her new owners in Saturday’s Grade 2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas (Race 6), Leg 1 of the Wilgerbosdrift Triple Tiara.
She will start a red-hot favourite although Tony Peter-trained Grade 1 VJ’s Angel is the highest-rated filly in the race. The latter jumps from stall No 13, two gates wider than Quid Pro Quo so it is hard to envisage the latter’s colours being lowered over a distance over which she is unbeaten and with improvement expected after that dominant course-and-distance Dingaans comeback.
Furthermore, Quid Pro Quo is Botes’ only runner on the day. One and done!
In the males’ equivalent, the Grade 2 Gauteng Guineas (Race 7), last-start winner Greaterix is good value to follow up his recent Grade 3 success over 1400m with victory in Leg 1 of the SA Triple Crown.
Muzi Yeni oozed confidence aboard the grey Vercingetorix colt last time and a 2kg swing in favour of the runner-up, re-opposing Fire Attack, may not be enough for the Alec Laird-trained latter to avenge that defeat.
Clive Robinson
