Never Worse Than Third: Doctor Strangelove’s Perfect Turffontein Record
Some horses take a while to find themselves. Doctor Strangelove, a three-year-old in Alec Laird’s Randjesfontein string, hasn’t needed the time. Four starts into his career, he’s yet to finish outside the top three — and today at Turffontein, under Calvin Habib, he added a second career win to go with two thirds and a maiden success, beating Page Boy and Eiger Sanction home in the day’s feature middle-distance handicap over 1800m.
The form line reads simply: 1-3-3, and now another 1. But the shape of it is what makes it interesting. His breakthrough win came right here at Turffontein on 11 June, stepping up to 2000m after two educational thirds at the Vaal and over course-and-distance. Today, on exactly a month’s break, he was dropped 3.5kg in the weights and asked to do it again over a shorter 1800m — and did, without much fuss. Two runs at Turffontein now, two of them wins.
It’s the kind of progressive pattern that gets noticed around the Randjesfontein yard, where Alec Laird has spent two decades building a string of around a hundred horses after moving up from his father Syd Laird’s stable — Syd was a fine trainer in his own right, with a Durban July win to his name. Alec has carried that eye for a horse forward, and Doctor Strangelove, still finding his legs at three, looks like one worth following as he steps up through the ranks on the Highveld.
There’s something fitting about a horse building a perfect record on the Turffontein turf specifically. The Standside track’s long uphill sweep to the 800m mark is a genuine stamina test, and a horse that keeps handling it — and keeps winning on it — is banking course form that should travel well into tougher company later in the year.
If you’re following today’s Turffontein card, the full racecard and form guide is at cfox.co.za/predictions.
