A flying Cosmic Highway managed to win by a neck despite looking to still be behind eventual runner up Countdown just short of the line. (Picture: Wayne Marks)

On Sunday at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth the Dean Kannemeyer-trained Cosmic Highway, a five-year-old Gimmethegreenlight gelding bred by Maine Chance Farms and owned by Khaya Stables,  produced a flying finish in the Merchants over 1200m to just get up and win by a neck under Craig Zackey.

The Glen Kotzen-trained Countdown had looked the likely winner and ensured an exacta for progeny of Gimmethegreenlight.

The Brett Crawford-trained favourite Surjay (Vercingetorix) still does not have bold black type, but for the fifth time in his career this weight for age Gr 1 runner up finished in the top three in a stakes race.

The fancied Peter Muscutt-trained KZN horse Quasiforsure (Quasillo) was a 0,90 length fourth.

The Eric Sands-trained rank outsider Wecangoallnight (Gimmethegreenlight) finished fifth, beaten 1,30 lengths.

Cosmic Highway looked to have been left with too much to do to catch Countdown, who had kicked into what looked like a winning lead.

Commentator Alistair Cohen actually gave it to Countdown such was the speed with which Cosmic Highway flashed past the post.

Kannemeyer said, “I’ve been watching racing at Kenilworth for 45 years and I was quite confident he had got it. The new commentators will learn the angle at Kenilworth because it can by tricky. Cosmic Highway loves that Kenilworth six furlongs. He annihilated that horse Trip Of Fortune in the Gr 2 Diadem Stakes last year. He loves to come from off the pace and he can turn it on. He came in with a nice galloping weight in the Merchants. Craig told me last time when he gave him one or two backhanders he didn’t like it and then when he put his hands down and rode him with the hands then he started to fly. So he told me before the race he is going to keep the stick off this horse and that is what he did. He pulled him out and he said ‘I just picked him up with the hands and he was loving it.'”

Dean continued, “He ran third in the Cape Guineas and was always in the top 5 of his generation. At the end of the last Summer Season he didn’t take any interest and we had to geld him. I took him to Durban and gave him a long break. It took him a long time to get rid of all that testosterone, but in his second run at HWB Greyville I could see he was now starting to focus again . When I brought him back to Cape Town he ran a very good race in the Matchem. I could see now he was really putting it together again.”

Dean will keep his options open with Cosmic Highway.

He said he had come out of Sunday’s race very well and might enter him in the Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate as well as the Gr 1 Cape Flying Championship, although he admitted 1000m was a touch on the sharp side for him.

He will be entering Gimme A Prince in the King’s Plate.

He said this top class Khaya Stables homebred gelding by Gimmethegreenlight, who won two Gr 1 sprints as a four-year-old last season, had never been easy to train and had to be given a lot of love and attention.

“Fortunately, he has a very patient owner. I always felt he would get a mile. He was flying at the finish in the Drill Hall and in the Matchem another few strides he beats Charles Dickens. We wanted to run him in the Green Point because that would have told us whether he got the mile, but he suffered a setback. I just needed another week, but couldn’t run him there. So he will go straight in to the King’s Plate. We will see how his training program goes.”

The Robbie Sage-trained Unzen wins the WSB Grand Heritage under Dennis Schwarz (Picture: World Sports Betting)

Unzen was an impressive winner of last season’s BSA Sales Cup by 4,75 lengths and in the first handicap race of his career The Robbie Sage-trained Erupt gelding won the WSB Grand Heritage over 1475m at the Vaal on Saturday.

Unzen was awarded a 108 merit rating for his BSA Sales Cup win last year and was kept to Graded and plate races thereafter.

It is interesting to note that last year’s Allied Steelrode Gr 3 Graham Beck Stakes has produced the Betway Summer Cup winner and two winners on Saturday.

The Nathan Kotzen-trained Pathfork gelding Royal Victory finished a 1,75 length third in the Graham Beck and went on to Summer Cup glory, while the St. John Gray-trained Argo Alley finished a 3,50 length sixth and won Saturday’s WSB Heritage Consolation, while Unzen finished a 4,75 length seventh and won the Grand Heritage.

Unzen has had his issues and was laid off for six months from March until September this year.

He had shown signs of coming back to his best in his four comeback runs before the Grand Heritage, while at the same time being dropped eight points to a 100 merit rating.

However, in his last build up race, over 1400m, he had fought S’Manga Khumalo early and then probably hit the front too soon, which saw him mowed down late by both Silver Hills and Red Bomber.

It was not surprising that the plan on Saturday was to tuck him in to allow him to settle with cover and then get a tow.

This was especially the case because his low draw of two appeared to be the wrong side according to the trends produced by the earlier races.

Dennis Schwarz revealed afterwards he had hoped to get him covered and then track over.

However, it was not to be because he pulled early again.

Schwarz wisely let him go and he faced the breeze on the far side throughout.

However, Schwarz became confident as the race progressed because he saw out of the corner of his eye he was ahead of the outisde pack and he was still travelling supremely.

Unzen responded well to his urging and fended off the number five drawn Funky Music to win by 1,25 lengths.

The number one drawn Brave Viking was also right there and was beaten 1,60 lengths into fourth.

The unlucky horse in retrospect was the 1,50 length third-placed Chyavana.

Gavin Lerena had managed to get him over from draw nine in the 22 horse field right over to the perceived favourable outside for his flying finish.

With the benefit of hindsight Lerena might have switched him the other way in the early stages and that could have made a difference to the consistent Flower Alley gelding, who finished fifth last year off a seven point lower mark.

Chase Maujean had also decided to track over on the favourite Silent War from draw six and sit behind the main pack. The Gimmethegreenlight gelding ran on well but the inside horses had stolen too much ground and it was all in vain as he was beaten 2,30 lengths.

Unzen was bred by the Tawny Syndicate and is owned by Messrs M Lieveaux, L M Nestadt, J C Thomas, J R van der Linden & Mrs M N Thomas.

He has now won two feature races, carrying stakes of R400,000 and R500,000 respectively, but both were Non-Black Type events.

Richard Fourie did have the benefit of hindsight for the Consolation race over the same 1475m trip on the hot pot favourite The Africa House and perhaps that is why he switched him to the inside from a middle draw.

The big horse had come from last with telling finishes for fourth in vintage renewals of the Gr 3 Betway Graham Beck Stakes and Gr 2 Jonsson Workwear Dingaans over 1600m.

He was not as effective on Saturday in a handy position without cover and was beaten when squeezed out late between the start-to-finish winner Argo Alley and runner up Tsar Bomba, although that incident did see many PA tickets in the bin because it cost The Africa House third place.

Place Du Carrousel Clears €4.025 Million at Arqana

Romantic Warrior (light blue) just holds on to defend his Hong Kong Cup crown (Picture: HKJC)

James McDonald declares back-to-back Hong Kong Cup champion ‘toughest racehorse I’ve ever sat on’

Romantic Warrior joins California Memory as a two-time winner of the city’s richest race, pipping Luxembourg six weeks on from his Cox Plate triumph

by Mark Worwood (South China Morning Post)

James McDonald declared Romantic Warrior “the toughest racehorse I’ve ever sat on” after Danny Shum Chap-shing’s globetrotter returned from Australia to win the Group One Longines Hong Kong Cup (2,000m) at Sha Tin on Sunday and join California Memory as a two-time winner of the city’s richest race.

Romantic Warrior, who won the Group One Cox Plate (2,040m) at Moonee Valley on October 28, beat Irish raider Luxembourg – a top-level victor at two, three and four – by a short head to equal the Hong Kong Cup feats of 2011 and 2012 champion California Memory.

Success in the HK$36 million Hong Kong Cup, worth more than HK$20 million to the first past the post, lifted Romantic Warrior’s earnings above HK$100 million and improved his record to 12 wins from 17 starts.

McDonald, whose only defeat from his six rides aboard Romantic Warrior came when they combined for fourth place in the Group One Turnbull Stakes (2,000m) three weeks before their history-making Cox Plate triumph, was effusive in his praise for his equine partner following their second Hong Kong Cup triumph.

“He’s the toughest racehorse I’ve ever sat on,” McDonald said. “He’s got a heart as big as a lion. His courage, his will to win is something I’ve never felt before. I’ve ridden some fantastic racehorses – unbelievable ones – and he’s right up there.

“To come back from a Cox Plate, I thought was going to be a ginormous task. For him to come here and do what he did in a Hong Kong Cup for the second time after all those hurdles he has had to overcome – it was a small margin, but he has come through with flying colours. This is his best win.”

Romantic Warrior’s second Hong Kong Cup victory was nothing like his first. Whereas in 2022, Panthalassa ensured that the race had a fast tempo, and the local hero dipped under two minutes in his four-and-a-half-length success, 2023 front runner Money Catcher took the field into the home straight more than 1.3 seconds outside the class benchmark, with the winner clocking 2:02.00 and prevailing in a photo finish.

Ryan Moore, sensing the Hong Kong Cup’s slow pace was detrimental to Luxembourg’s chances, got busy aboard the Aidan O’Brien-trained galloper, and they drew level with McDonald and Romantic Warrior 600m out.

“I wouldn’t have minded it coming at the 400m – it would have given me a little bit more of a breather – but that’s why Ryan Moore is the best jockey in the world,” McDonald said about the strategic in-running move the British rider made on his Irish mount.

“He’s tactically so good, and he probably saw that if my horse was going to be vulnerable, it was going to be in this race. But I’m so humbled – so honoured – to be associated with such a great racehorse.”

Like McDonald, Romantic Warrior supplied Shum with his second Hong Kong International Races win. And like McDonald, Shum commended the galloper.

“He had a really hard race [in the Cox Plate],” Shum said. “He came back [from Australia] on a long flight. Ten hours. Two weeks in quarantine. No matter how he works on the treadmill, it’s not easy at all. Luckily, Romantic Warrior is a real warrior.”

Shum will speak with Romantic Warrior’s owner, Peter Lau Pak-fai, to determine the five-year-old Hong Kong International Sale graduate’s future itinerary.

“I’ll leave it to Peter,” Shum said. “He’ll give me his decision, and I’ll follow his plan.”

Solskjaer pictured at Summerhill Stud. His best runner in SA was likely the Gavin van Zyl-trained Gr 1 Summer Cup runner up Shogunnar, who was also third in both the Gr 1 Daily News 2000 and the Gr 1 Champions Cup (Picture: Summerhill Stud)

Heversham Park Farm

Solksjaer (IRE), the Danehill stallion who came to South Africa in the early 2000s and was later sent back to the UK, where he died a few years ago, sired a G1-placed runner in 6-year-old Found A Fifty. He was placed second in the Bar One Drinmore Novice Chase over 4200m at Fairyhouse on Sunday, beaten by the 2023 Grand National winner, I Am Maximus.

Solksjaer  was imported to South Africa for stud duties at Summerhill Stud in 2007 and his first few crops impressed most experts with their beautiful, flowing strides. There were many bread-and-butter runners among the early crops, but he didn’t quite make the grade and Mick Goss decided to retire him in 2013.

Soon after he was retired in 2015 he was placed on an auction where he received no bids, but Advocate Nigel Riley of Heversham Park Stud came to hear of him and secured him for only R5,000 after negotiating with Greg Muir, the former Stud Manager at Summerhill.

Riley tells: “Solskjaer was a half-brother to Yeats (Sadler’s Wells), who won seven Gr1 races and at the time was picking up momentum as a sire of excellent jump horses.

We made some enquiries and sent Solskjaer back to Ireland to stand as a jump stallion at Coolagown Stud in County Cork. “Being so closely related to Yeats, Solskjaer drew immediate attention and we were amazed at the support from breeders. He covered 80 mares a season in his first three seasons but then he scaled down after his busy time.

“We were pleasantly surprised to see his son run such a good race on Sunday. Solsksjaer retired with dignity and made his mark.”

Fernando Toro, who recently became the oldest living jockey ever inducted into the Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2023. Toro, 82, retired in 1990 with 3,555 North American winners, plus another 500 or so recorded in his native Chile, where he earned a string of national titles.

In The Bull Brand International over 1600m, the great David Payne-trained In Full Flight, with Toro aboard, put in one of his career best performances, destroying subsequent three-times Summer Cup winner Elevation, with Michael Roberts up, by 5,5 lengths in course record time.

In Full Flight’s arch rival Sentinel, ridden by the father of Frankie Dettori, Gianfranco Dettori, was beaten eight lengths into third.