My Sanctuary’s latest runner looks promising

The mare My Sanctuary has carved two places in history for herself and could soon be in the news again as her latest runner, the Mike de Kock-trained Silver Sanctuary, looked good in the preliminaries at the Vaal on Thursday and duly won a good race, writes DAVID THISELTON in Turf Talk.

The Drakenstein homebred Silvano filly is a full-sister to Gr 1 Daily News 2000-winning stablemate Safe Passage and ran on fluently  under JP van der Merwe in the 1400m event down the straight to win by a cosy 1,75 lengths.

Safe Passage is finding even a mile too short these days, so Silver Sanctuary will improve over further and being by Silvano should progress continually. She already has value as a broodmare and will one day be another fine addition to the leading stakes race-producing farm in the country.

Silver Sanctuary, post race.

My Sanctuary’s first entry into SA racing history books was as the cause of a protest at the old Clairwood racecourse that caused the meeting to be abandoned. In a small field, she was the hot favourite and her gate did not open. However, My Sanctuary, who was said to be temperamental, burst through the gates, using her strength. She had lost a good five to ten lengths, but her class saw her running on strongly to finish third. Under the rules a horse who finishes in the first four cannot be declared a non-runner. The angry crowd demanded she be declared a non-runner and prevented the jockeys from going out for the next race. However, the stipendiary stewards’ hands were tied by the rules and the meeting had to be abandoned.

My Sanctuary’s second claim to fame was as a Gr 1-producing mare.

Silver Sanctuary will hopefully add to her story. Mike de Kock: “There is something there. She didn’t seem to beat much, but she looks progressive because she wasn’t tuned for her debut.”