Man with horse in his blood

Gavin Smith was brought up in a racing stable so he knows what a good horse looks like.

A few years ago he spotted one at a sale in Cape Town and bought him for R85000 - a song in the modern thoroughbred market.

"He was a tall, gangly yearling, but he was a good walker. And he had a good eye," Gavin told me this week.

Trainers like Gavin intently study the way horses walk. They look for straight legs, properly angled pasterns and shoulders, and other minutiae concerning gaskins, cannons, hocks and fetlocks.

"Big overstep", when the back hoof places well beyond the point from which the front hoof is lifted, is a Good Thing.

The stuff about "good eye"... well, there we're into mystical territory, I reckon. But I wouldn't argue with Mr Smith; him being reared in a barn.

His grandfather, Andrew, was a jockey and trainer in Port Elizabeth way back, and his father, Andy, followed in those footsteps.

Gavin was 11 when he started doing gallops work for his dad and took full charge of the training yard in 1995, before he'd turned 30.

Last month he won his sixth Eastern Cape champion trainer title.

But Gavin still had a small thing to achieve: winning a race on the Highveld. He'd raced there twice before, placing third both times.

Enter the colt mentioned earlier. His name is In A Rush and he scored a shock victory at 25/1 at last weekend's Emerald Cup on the Vaal sand.

"Belying his name, In A Rush took time to mature but he's always been impressive on sand training tracks," said Gavin.

"He never has an off day. I test other horses against him because he's an excellent gauge."

In A Rush is also brilliant on turf. Five early wins made him the Eastern Cape champion juvenile. Then he beat the great Variety Club in a big race in Cape Town.

Gavin and his fellow owners transferred the gelding to a Durban yard in search of bigger stakes. But a breathing operation slowed progress for a while.

Last month, In A Rush was granted a place in the Emerald Cup - his first competitive outing on sand.

Gavin knew that the explosive power he'd seen flitting through the trees on the Fairview sand courses put a big prize in grasping range.

Superbly ridden by Francois Herholdt, In A Rush stole away from his rivals at the top of the Vaal straight, then held off the heroic challenge of heavily weighted Pylon - rated the country's best sand horse.

The Port Elizabeth boys are still celebrating.

Gavin trained only one, moderately performing, filly for me, but I'd go along with the urging of some of his major Joburg patrons that this friendly, unassuming, master horseman should re-locate to Jozi for our benefit.

He's vaguely interested in the idea but deep down remains a hometown boy.

Turffontein, tomorrow: PA - 3,4,11 x 3,7 x 1,4,6 x 1,9 x 7,11 x 6 x 4 (R72)