Champion Warrior stretches late and gets the better of his Gr 1-winning stablemate Cosmic Speed (JC Photos)
The Vaal straight course can produce specialists who love its particular challenge and one such horse in the Sean Tarry-trained Champion Warrior, who caused a 40/1 upset when surging late in a Conditions Plate over 1400m today to beat his Gr 1-winning stablemate Cosmic Speed.
The 91-rated Champion Warrior was only receiving 1,5kg from the 126 rated Cosmic Speed, meaning he was a whopping 16kg under sufferance.
He was having his third run after a long rest and his two comeback runs had yielded defeats of 10,50 lengths over the same course and distance as today on September 30 and a 7,15 length last place over 1450m on the Turffontein Inside track on October 30.
Hardly inspiring, but looking at the career of this Twice Over gelding, who is now a six-year-old, he had appeared to be going places when winning his first two career starts in Cape Town for Brett Crawford back in September and October 2022.
However, he then lost his way and when joining the Sean Tarry yard halfway through the next season he was coming off seven consecutive unplaced runs and a merit rating that had dropped from 97 to 80.
In his first five starts for Tarry he ran two close seconds at Turffontein over 1160m and 1600m respectively, but was unplaced in the other three starts.
He arrived at the Vaal straight course on October 10 last year rated 81 and at last landed his third career win, carrying 60,5kg to victory in a 1400m event down the straight.
He followed up in his next start. Carrying 59,5kg in a handicap over 1600m on the Vaal straight he won by an easy 2,50 length.
It did help that he was ridden on both occasions by Piere Strydom.
The great jockey commented at the time that Tarry had solved an issue with the horse that had led to him tending to hang inward.
He had run as straight as a dye that day.
Today (Thursday) he made it three wins from four starts on the Vaal straight.
He actually looked to have more than just his recent form against him as he was drawn highest in a field of seven and the stalls were placed on the inside rail, meaning low draws would probably be favourable.
However, Calvin Habib made the astute decision to angle him outward from the off and he took Champion Warrior to the middle outside, where it seemed apparent he had fresher ground.
On the rain softened course the rest of the field seemed to be kicking up a lot of mud in the strip on the inside that they stuck to, while Champion Warrior appeared to have firmer footing.
Tarry had asked Habib to look at how Piere Strydom had ridden him, which was to take him prominent early but to then just keep him in the hands and crouch down when asking for extra, but never producing the stick.
Habib kept to that script and when he went over to join the others in the closing stages it was clear only he or Cosmic Speed could win.
Cosmic Speed looked to have the edge but a deft change of whiphands late and a couple of backhanders saw Champion Warrior surging late to win by a quarter of a length.
The stick was used in the end, but it wasn’t used unnecessarily.
There was talk of Champion Warrior being a Grand Heritage runner at this time last year, but he must have had an issue, because he had a run at Turffontein about three-and-a-half weeks before the big race and was next seen ten months later.
Hopefully, the long-striding Twice Over gelding will make it this year to the Grand Heritage, which is the race in South Africa that has the biggest field with a maximum of 28 runners.
With his liking for the Vaal straight he will be a big runner in the 1475m event.
