SA-trained filly Beach Bomb nukes US on her star debut

Beach Bomb, the star South African filly exported to the US in March, finished a commendable runner-up in her first race in her new environs at the weekend showing she's likely to be in good nick for an all-important Breeders Cup assignment in November.

- Mike Moon

The diminutive four-year-old, a winner of two Grade 1 races in Cape Town's summer season, finished 1.75 lengths behind red-hot 1/5 favourite Maman Joon in the Violet Stakes, a $100 000 (about R1.8 million) feature at Monmouth Park racecourse in New Jersey.

Racing in the well-known blue and white silks of Gaynor Rupert's Drakenstein Stud, Beach.

Bomb (9/2) was positioned midway in the six-horse field for most of the 1 700m trip, with Maman Joon loitering at the rear.

In the run-in, Maman Joon powered past all her rivals to win comfortably. Beach Bomb and rider Jairo Rendon were caught a little flatfooted by the winner's finishing surge but picked it up to finish strongly.