Dave The King’s big stride carries him to Gr 1 wfa glory for the third time. (Picture: Candiese Lenferna).
The Mike and Mathew de Kock-trained Dave The King is back to his best and defended his Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge crown at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Saturday in fine style, while Oriental Charm confirmed himself a worthy stallion in the making and Gladatorian confirmed he is the most improved horse in training.
Dave The King will be attempting to make it four wfa Gr 1s in succession at his favourite stamping ground when he lines up in the Gr 1 Champions Cup at Hollywoodbets Greyville on the last weekend of the season.
He didn’t look likely to scale these heights after his two lacklustre runs at Turffontein at the beginning of the season, which saw him beaten 19 lengths and 12 lengths respectively.
However, Mike de Kock is a world class trainer and with the help of his son and partner Mathew and the team they got to the bottom of the problem.
Dave The King came back like his old self at Hollywoodbets Scottsville over 1500m, the same race he had taken in last year, and then on Saturday he confirmed his well-being.
After breaking well and taking the early lead The big Global View five-year-od gelding ended up in the box seat behind pacemaker Oriental Charm with Cafe Culture on his outside keeping him in, which was not ideal for him because he likes to get going at about the 600m mark and on this occasion he had to wait until the straight.
However, the pace was at least decent which allowed him to use his big stride.
Callan Murray steered him expertly around the final turn, meaning he got an immediate split on the inside of Oriental Charm coming off the false rail.
His massive stride had carried him into the lead by the 300m mark.
Cosmic Speed looked the chief danger as he had headed Oriental Charm.
However, the Vercingetorix colt has gained a reputation for never throwing in the towel and he fought back to overtake the younger Cosmic Speed and he then challenged Dave The King all the way to the line.
DaveThe King’s big stride carried him home and did find some extra when it counted.
Oriental Charm had earlier pinged the gate and had to go hard to get ahead of Dave The King.
He then appeared to set decent and consistent fractions, which allowed the field to stride out behind him, so to find extra after being overtaken by two horses once again showed how big his engine is and how much courage he has.
He failed by a neck to add a valuable Gr 1 wfa Mile to his stallion CV (he is already being advertised by Drakenstein Stud).
Meanwhile, the Stuart Ferrie-trained five-year-old Vercingetorix gelding Gladatorian was dropped out from a tricky draw of eight out of 12 and was able to get cover in a one out position with only Great Plains behind him.
He was able to maintain a fair rhythm behind the decent pace, although he would have preferred it to have been quicker.
He went through two gaps, but it is clear from the overhead shots that he only really got going when he saw daylight ahead of him at about the 200m mark.
He still had more than three lengths to make up at that stage, but he stretched out beautifully and it was a gallant effort to get within 0,30 lengths of the winner.
Cosmic Speed was beaten 0,85 lengths into fourth place.
See It Again was jostled when attempting to get past William Robertson, who was going nowhere, at the top of the straight, as Gladatorian went straight for that same gap, as he was enititled to do.
See It Again had to be eased before getting a run and that cost him any chance and he could ony manage a 4,45 length fifth, but a line can be drawn through that run.
Oriental Charm, Gladatorian and See It Again will likely clash at level weights in the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Durban July as it looks likely that the former pair wll join See It Again on a 127 merit rating and they will thus all three be the joint topweights with 60kg.
Dave The King will wait until the Champions Cup and his relative freshness coupled with his class will give him a fine chance of landing a double double.
It was a second Gr 1 win victory in successive weekends for Callan Murray, whose career has been rejuvenated in the last few weeks as he has been given some good rides since returning home from Australia, where it was not easy to get going.
He is tall for a jockey, but looks much more comfortable in his frame now than he did when still going through a growth spurt, so it looks likely that he is now going to fulill the enormous promise he was said to have had by many when at the South African Jockey Academy.
It was a first Gr 1 win for Mike and Mathew de Kock as official partners and it was obviously an emotional moment for the family.
Relief could also have been one of the overriding emotions. Mike revealed that it had been a pressure filled preparation because they had to hold their breaths everytime Dave The King went out to work, hoping that his issue did not resurface.
Dave The King was bred by Gary Player, who races him in partnership with Larry Nestadt and Ralphs Racing. He is now a winner of 8 races with 8 places from 25 starts for stakes of R5 782 394.
