King Regent took out the three-legged Poly Challenge in the Eastern Cape on Friday, as the 4/10, odds- on favourite. Glen Kotzen’s entry again predictably proved much too strong for the locals having run 106’s on a couple of occasions.
It was a strategic piece of race planning by Kotzen to select the Poly Challenge for King Regent who is not quite up to Graded standard in the major centers, but plenty good enough to clean up in PE.
He has now won seven races from 17 starts and is effective between 1200m and 1600m. King Regent has a shock 25/1 level weights victory over a prepping, HOTY Princess Calla to his name over 1250m at Durbanville, probably his best trip. Dennis Schwarz handled him just fine in all three Legs at Fairview to secure the bonus.
Some good numbers were put up at Durbanville on Saturday. Oliver (s/s 102) swept impressively down the outer rail to get past Rosh Kedesh (s/s 99) – Adam Marcus’ runner is now in the form of his life; Baratheon (s/s 100) again started his Spring campaign with a victory at the country course; Radicchio (s/s 97) warmed up in time to prevail over Dawn to Dusk (s/s 95) despite going to post like a crab and Song to the Moon (s/s 95) edged out Hoodia (s/s 94) in a rare old tussle.
Then, Kaiboy (s/s 95) showed sustained pace to fend off Mon Petit Cherie’s closing flurry (s/s 90 ++) and Be Merry (s/s 93 +) romped to a convincing win in the finale – such was the ease of her victory, she looks certain to run even bigger figures if pressed.
Southern Blaze attained the day’s best speed score at Turffontein of 95. Stuart Pettigrew’s gelding just gets better and better – this rounded out a hat trick for the son of Global View who coped with the climb in class.