Flag Man pictured at the Hollywoodbets Durban July gallops (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Gavin van Zyl won the Gr 1 Daily News 2000 with The Apache in 2011 and that horse went on to finish fourth in the July before winning the Gr 1 Champions Cup.
His son Gareth’s Flying The Flag gelding Flag Man only just failed in the Daily News before finishing fourth in the July and he will now be out to emulate The Apache again by winning the HKJC Champions Cup.
The Apache was initially an R80,000 purchase and amassed R17 million in stakes earnings from 20 appearances across 4 countries.
Flag Man was initially a R100,000 purchase, but was bought out of his first yard by the Van Zyls after his maiden win.
He won his first two starts for the Van Zyls before going down by just a head in the Daily News.
Flag Man jumped from a wide draw of 17 in the July and from a handy position looked the winner at the 200m mark as he had passed the pacemaker Oriental Charm and had hit the front.
However, he found no extra and Oriental Charm came back, while Cousin Casey and Royal Victory also produced strong late runs, which relegated Flag Man to a 1,70 length fourth.
Gareth said, “According to the circumstances i.e. a wide draw of 17 and a big 18 horse field, we decided to race him a bit differently from his usual style of running(hold up style) and it’s not preferable to do that.I’m not sure we would have had a different outcome for ourselves if we had given him a chance from that draw. So we were positive and perhaps it told late in the race, but that was perhaps mostly down to him racing contrary to his preferred style of running.”
He continued, “He has taken the race well and he’s going to run in the Champions Cup.”
The Gr 1 HKJC Champions Cup is a weight for age event over 1800m.
The distance should be ideal for Flag Man and on weight for age terms he will be better off with all of the horses he faced in the Hollywoodbets Durban July with the exception of See It Again (this is presuming Green With Envy does not take part, as it has been reported he will be given a rest and will not run again this season.).
See It Again was 2,5kg worse off than weight for age with Flag Man in the July and was unlucky not to finish third instead of fifth, so Flag Man will have a hard task beating him.
Flag Man has drawn eight out of the 13 entries while See It Again has drawn 13.
See It Again is merit rated 131 to Flag Man’s 126 and Dave The King is the only other horse rated higher than Flag Man on 127.
Gareth concluded, “His July run proved that the Daily News wasn’t a flash in the panand he’s got to be one of the better weight for age horses around on that effort.”
