Mike de Kock in the winner’s enclosure after Saturday’s Gr 1 Woolavington 2000 (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Speaking after the running of the Woolavington 2000 on Saturday, Mike de Kock was not sure of the winner Silver Sanctuary’s participation in the Hollywoodbets Durban July and seemed to be swinging towards her running in the Gr 1 Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes instead.
He said, “I am not a hundred percent sure and I’ll discuss it with Kevin (Sommerville) again. I don’t want to go into the July just to be a participant. You have to look at the weights and see what the difference between her and the colts is. We’ll see how the handicappers assess this but I won’t commit until then.”
He said with two of Silver Sanctuary’s conquerors in big races now not in the picture for the rest of the season i.e. Gimme A Nother and Beach Bomb, it might be a “slightly softer” Garden Province this year.
He added, “There’s never really a soft Group 1, but I think there are a couple of nice three-year-old colts around and if she’s too tight with horses like Green With Envy and is not getting a full sex allowance it would put you off the July, wouldn’t it.”
He said, “But that is the beauty of training for Gaynor, she ‘s going to leave it to us, or let’s put it this way we are going to chat about it.”
He concluded, “Anyway, Silver Sanctuary was a deserved winner (of the Woolavington). She’s been quite game in defeat in all of her races. She just unfortunately ran into a freak (Gimme A Nother).”
The weights have actually swung in Silver Sanctuary’s favour since the above interview, or at least in relation to Green With Envy.
As things stand Silver Sanctuary will be getting 3,5kg from Green With Envy in the July, which is 1kg more than the usual weight for age sex allowance.
Mike’s other chief July hope is Dave The King, who runs in the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge next.
He said about his July particpation, “It’s a little far for him. But he’s a better horse since gelding and in last year’s July he wasn’t a gelding.”
He said about him not settling perfectly in his races, “He’s a big striding horse and it’s more the fact he wants to get on with it. A horse like him, you can’t hold him back because then you losing his best asset, his stride length.”
Speaking about Gimme A Nother he said that even without her pending overseas trip, she had deserved a rest.
He said, “I was hard on her.”
Asked how she ranked against the best fillies he’s trained, he replied, “She is pretty easy to train and is one of the best. I suppose we don’t know yet, but she’s looking that way. On a few lines of form, she’s looking to be a very, very serious filly. And I still think her best trip is ten furlongs. We haven’t even been there yet.”
