Andrew Fortune steers the smart three-year-old Kalahari King to victory in the Gr 3 Cape Classic over 1400m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Sunday. Fortune will retain the ride for the Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas (Picture: Wayne Marks)
The Justin Snaith-trained Vercingetorix gelding Kalahari King has come out of his impressive 3,50 length victory in the Gr 3 Cape Classic in fine shape and will now go straight for the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas (December 16) and he will thus avoid one of the traditional Guineas pointer races, the Gr 2 Cape Punter Cup over 1600m (November 29).
Jonathan Snaith said, “He has come out of the race in excellent shape and remains very much on his toes. Justin plans to give him a grass gallop ten days before the Gr1 Cape Guineas to put the finishing touches on his preparation.
With his new rating of 109, there is no need to run him again before the Guineas, and we are confident he can head straight into the race without another outing.
Andrew Fortune has been booked to ride him in the Gr1.”
Kalahari King was so well after Sunday’s race he was emulating the famous horse Moonlit. The latter was a Syd Garrett-trained 1930s legend who was always greeted with shouts of “Nkosi!” by the grooms whenever arriving back at Roamer Lodge and with that he would stand on his hindlegs and walk into the the yard as if to say, “Yes, I know I’m the King!”
The below picture of Kalahari King taken yesterday illustrates the point.
Interestingly, Kalahari King traces back on her female line to a 1905-born mare (Ripple) who was by the many-times South African champion sire Greatorex, a British-bred horse by Australian legend Carbine, and Moonlit himself was out of a Greatorex mare.
Kalahari King is owned by his breeder Bjorn Nielsen in partnership with Greg and Gina Bortz.
An interesting point is that the good looking chestnut was born and raised at Drakenstein Stud.
Bjorn keeps his South African-based mares at Jan Mantel’s Millstream Stud farm, but his first mare here was Kalahari King’s dam Really Royal (Captain Al).
The Klawervlei Stud-bred Really Royal topped the 2019 Cape Premier Yearling Sale when knocked down for R4,000,000 to bloodstock agent Anthony Stroud on behalf of Bjorn.
She was trained by Justin Snaith and won three times, including the Listed WSB Sweet Chestnut Stakes over 1600m.
She initially stood at Drakenstein Stud before Bjorn made the decision to board all of his mares at Millstream.
Drakenstein vendored Kalahari King as agent on last year’s Race Coast Sales Premier Yearling Sale and he was purchased for R3.5 million by Leon Ellman, who often owns horses together with the Bortz’s. Bjorn ended up keeping a share.
Bjorn is a globally well know horseracing owner and became a famous racing personality as the owner and breeder of the Hall Of Fame stayer, the legendary Sea The Stars entire Stradivarius, who was trained by John Gosden initially and later by John and Thady Gosden.
If the colours carried by Kalahari King on Sunday looked familiar it is because they are the same colours Stradivarius carried to victory in three Gr 1 Ascot Gold Cups, four Gr 1 Goodwood Cups, one Gr 1 British Champions Long Distance Cup, three Gr 2 Yorkshire Cups, three Gr 2 Lonsdale Cups, two Gr 2 Doncaster Cups, one Gr 2 Queen’s Vase and one Gr 3 Sagaro Stakes.
The below pictures are of 1) part-owners Bjorn Nielsen and Gina Bortz and handler Jabulani Mdludlu after Sunday’s win (A mutal friend of Bjorn and Gina’s, Lauren Carey, stands in between them, but she is not a part-owner). 2) Jockey Andrew Fortune and Jonathan Snaith’s son Joshua. 
