Sunday, 8 July 2012: Class remains in a family, if sometimes skipping a generation, and when it comes out it all becomes obvious. Such was the case at Greyville on Saturday when two-year-old filly Rumya (NZ) won the R500,000, Group 1 Durban Golden Slipper (1400m).
The grey filly has the illustrious Australian champion race mare Emancipation, a grey, in her pedigree and trainer Mike De Kock has no doubt the home-bred filly of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al Maktoum's has a serious future.
“She is a top filly otherwise I would not have entered her,” said De Kock.
“A nice filly and she is going to go further. Emancipation is in her family and she is going the right way.
“I am inclined to put her away, she has won the Group 1 and she wants further. She is a late maturing type and she wants a mile (1600m) and ten furlongs (2000m), he said.
After a slow loading of the large field De Kock suffering having another stable entry Tayba being scratched at the barriers when another horse played up in the barriers. The champion trainer said he was aggravated by the loading procedures.
Once the field was on its way stable number one rider Anthony Delpech was happy to settle at the rear of the field.
Schiffer and Sean Cormack took the field through the early sectionals from All Is Secret and Ilha Da Rock (AUS).
After the cut-away rail All Is Secret and Anton Marcus went to the lead and the field of juveniles started to thin out over the track. Rumya was giving at least 7L to the leaders as she came off the rail, and then Delpech sent her forward down the middle of the track.
All Is Secret felt the pace while Schiffer was still clinging to her forward position. Straight Set and Jeff Lloyd challenged strongly and took over the running, but Rumya started to appear from her rear position.
As they reached the 100m the gap started to close quickly as the grey filly really showed her turn of foot. Straight Sett came to the end of her run and Rumya flashed past to run away with the win with the margin an increasing 3/4L.
Straight Set (Victory Moon) held second well clear of Schiffer (Var) with the margin 3 3/4L. The time was 1.36.13 on the Good track.
“Thankfully she missed the plane to Dubai (the destination of many stable runners), but she might have to get on the next one,” said De Kock.
“She also was starting to get fractious (in the gates). Luckily, I took her out but I still jumped out a bit slow, she didn't help me out of the gates,” said Delpech
“She was very green around the turn and halfway up the straight I thought well maybe I've got a chance in the last 100.
“She's a really nice filly. She's still maturing and learning,” he said.
Rumya is by Red Ransom out of the Fuji Kieski mare Sayuri San and she was reared at
Coolmore Stud in the NSW Hunter Valley. This was her second race start after winning her race debut over 1200m at Greyville on June 12th. She now has the invaluable Group 1 win and stakes of R312,500.
