The Clive Murphy homebred gelding Kingdundee completes a start to finish victory in the Gr 1 World Pool Cape Flying Championship under Calvin Habib (Picture: Wayne Marks)
There was a dream result in the Gr 1 World Pool Cape Flying Championship as the East Cape raider Kingdundee, a Clive Murphy-homebred four-year-old gelding, blitzed them from the highest draw of all in the 14 horse field to lead from start to finish under Calvin Habib.
He gave Dean Smith his first Gr 1 winner just a few months after he had taken over the yard from his late father Gavin and it was also a first Gr 1 winner for the Galileo sire The United States.
Kingdundee beat home the Stuart Ferrie-trained I Am Giant by 0,75 lengths with Outlaw King next best followed by Asiye Phambili, Surjay and Cafe Culture, while the hot favourite Buffalo Storm Cody could only manage seventh place.
Kingdundee caused a 33/1 upset, despite having come into the race unbeaten in five previous starts over 1000m, four of them on the Fairview turf and one on the Fairview poly, and having only once finished out of the top two in his previous eleven career starts and that was over 1400m.
The sprint course was running fast on Saturday at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth and that played into his hands.
Calvin Habib realised the importance of fast early fractions under the circumstances and bounced the four-year-old gelding out from the highest draw of all, draw 14, and tore off to the front, angling to the centre of the track.
It looked briefly at the 400m as if he would come under pressure, but he then actually produced a kick at the 300m mark.
By the 200m mark it became clear that nothing was going well enough to catch him and he managed to keep going to win by 0,75 lengths.
I Am Giant came from two or three lengths off the pace with his usual strong finish down the inside.
The tenacious Outlaw King was just on the outside of I Am Giant and showed how tough he is by staying on from a handy position for a 1,05 length third.
Asiye Phambili was behind I Am Giant throughout and finished hard up on the inside in fourth, beaten 1,45 lengths, and she was the only horse to sneak marginally under 23 seconds for the final 400m.
Surjay, a former wfa Gr 1 winner but now seven years old, finished strongly for a 1,55 length fifth, beating Cafe Culture by a shorthead with Buffalo Storm Cody never really getting into it and staying on for a 2,35 length seventh.
The winner stopped the clock in 57,91 seconds.
Kingdundee has now won 8 races with 2 places from 11 starts and stakes of R1 480 125.
Kingdundee is out of the one-time winning Duke Of Marmalade mare, Miss Marmalade, who was recently acquired by Paardeberg Stud.
Dean Smith was emotional in the winning interview and he dedicated the win to “My Dad” and added, “He ran with him today.”
He said Calvin had come in with a gameplan and had carried it out to a tee.
He said he had believed Kingdundee had a chance but he was not as confident as Calvin had been.
It was in fact the first time Calvin had ridden Kingdundee, who is normally ridden by Craig Zackey.
The latter was tied to the ride on Outlaw King as he is stable jockey to Dean Kannemeyer.
