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Futura made it two Champions Cups in succession to give trainer Justin Snaith and jockey Bernard Fayd'Herbe their first wins in the Group One feature at Greyville.

Futura repeated last year's win when he was trained by Brett Crawford, justifying favouritism when he got the better of Ice Machine and stable companion Legislate to assert his place as the best older horse currently racing in South Africa after his recent loss in the Durban July.

"It hasn't been easy with Futura. After the Durban July I was a little bit disappointed,” Snaith admitted.

“I rang Brett Crawford and he gave me a bit of advice which was kind of him."

Futura has now won four G1 races among his nine wins in 15 starts but he had to pull out al stops to grab a narrow win.

Turning for home Legislate appeared to be going the best. He hit the front but weakened as Ice Machine started his run while Futura was slowly starting to quicken on the inside.

Ice Machine looked to have the race won but Futura showed tremendous courage under pressure to get up by a head.

Greyville hosted three other G1 races on Saturday with Wild One taking out the 3200m eLan Property Group Gold Cup, South Africa's premier staying event which had been delayed a week due to inclement weather.

The Mike De Kock-trained Wild One ran on strongly to hold off a late challenge from rank outsider Balance Sheet, who took a late bump from the winner.

De Kock, who has now won the Gold Cup three times, said: "He has had a helluva preparation. Unusually, absolutely nothing went wrong with the possible exception of the delay."

Wild One, who has recovered from a possible career ending injury, picked up his first G1 win four his fourth win in 19 starts.

De Kock disclosed that the horse was so badly injured just over a year that owner Sean Phillips lost his enthusiasm for racing and put all his horses up for sale. Luckily he bought Wild One back for R200,000.

Wild One provided jockey Anthony Delpech with his first victory in the Gold Cup after finishing second six times in previous runnings.

"This horse was spot-on today," Delpech said. "He has enjoyed the perfect prep. He's the best stayer around at the moment."

The other two G1 races saw Lauderdale upset a high-class field of 3YO fillies in the Thekwini Stakes while hot favorite Rabada had to dig down deep to land the Premier's Champion Stakes.

Lauderdale, trained by Duncan Howells and ridden by Muzi Yeni, took full advantage when the de Kock-trained Persian Rug swerved away from the whip and lost her momentum.

She fought back to take third behind Lauderdale and Melliflora.

Yeni believes the swerving by Persian Rug was caused by a shadow across the course.

"Persian Rug saw the shadow and ducked quite badly. I was in the right place, I was able to pull out at the right time and that's what won it for me,” he said.

Rabada, trained by Mike Azzie and ridden by Anton Marcus, stretched his unbeaten run to three when he beat Prospect Strike and stable companion Abashiri.