Gold Standard in a good place
GLEN KOTZEN’S top class colt Gold Standard is in full work and will be a leading contender for the two Principal Grade 1 events of the Cape Summer Of Champions Season, the L’Ormarin’s Queen’s Plate and the Sun Met.
Kotzen will also have a strong team for the threeyear-old classics led by his Grade 1 Premier’s Champion Stakes winner Eyes Wide Open.
Gold Standard “went wrong” after his excellent fourth place finish in an ultra strong Sun Met at the end of January and a decision was made to avoid the SA Champions Season in KZN.
Kotzen said the couple of months holiday had done the strapping Trippi colt a “world of good”.
He will now take the traditional Cape Summer route for a top older horse of the WSB Green Point Stakes, the Queen’s Plate and the Met.
However, he might have a preparation outing before the Green Point.
Kotzen said, “He is in a good place, he’s cruising, and is twice the horse he was as a three-year-old.”
It was a surprise to many when last season’s Grand Parade Cape Guineas winner William Longsword was not named the Equus Champion Three-year-old Male and he and Gold Standard looked to be a class apart in the latter race both in looks and performance.
Gold Standard had earlier beaten William Longsword when winning the Grade 2 Selangor Cup and his record against the Equus Three-Year-Old Male Champion, Edict Of Nantes, was two-nil. He then proved his class in the Met, finishing 1,25 lengths ahead of Marinaresco on 2kg better terms than weight for age, whereas Marinaresco beat Edict Of Nantes in the Vodacom Durban July, despite the latter being 4kg better off than weight for age with him.
The Equus Awards now appear to be based chiefly on Grade 1 victories, presumably to avoid controversy, but this measure has arguably made it more controversial as Gold Standard was not even among the nominees in the Three-year-old Male category.
Eyes Wide Open
Eyes Wide Open, a Dynasty colt, runs in the same colours as Gold Standard, being owned outright by Hugo and Suzanne Hattingh’s Chrigor Stud, who part-own Gold Standard together with Drakenstein Stud. Eyes Wide Open won the Grade 1 Premier’s Champion Stakes in impressive style on Gold Cup day. He was subsequently given a three week break and given his African Horse Sickness vaccinations.
Kotzen said, “He is out of the top drawer and is a serious contender for the three-year-old classics.” His chief targets are the Cape Guineas and the Investec Cape Derby.
He will also likely defend the yard’s crown in the Selangor Cup before those two races.
Kotzen also views two of his other colts as classic contenders, Opera Royal and Pack Leader.
Opera Royal by Oratorio won his maiden in his third start by 3,5 lengths over 1400m on the Greyville poly. He followed up by finishing a narrow second to the promising Roy Had Enough in a Juvenile Plate over 19 00m on the Greyville turf.
The form of the latter race has not worked out too well to date, but Opera Royal looks to have plenty of scope for improvement.
Kotzen said, “He is a really smart colt and I think once he matures we will hear a lot about him.”
The connections believe he might have got going too late in that 1 900m event because with the blinkers on he had not seen the other horse on the inside rail. The blinkers were put on for the previous 1400m race, as it was considered too sharp for him, and they were kept on after he had won that race easily.
However, they might now be removed. Kotzen views Opera Royal as a Cape Derby horse.
Pack Leader
Pack Leader, a Philanthropist colt, was unlucky in the Premier’s Champion Stakes, where he finished a 1,45 length seventh. Kotzen said, “Craig Zackey had to check him and he reckoned he would otherwise have won the race.
“The Philanthropists get better as they get older and I believe he will mature into a beautiful threeyear-old. He is a Guineas and Derby contender.”
Kotzen’s leading three-year-old filly is the Grade 3 The Debutante winner Princess Peach, by Captain Al. He said on paper she should stay a mile, but she had enjoyed reverting to 1200m in the Debutante, so the Grade 1 WSB Cape Fillies Guineas might not be part of her program.
However, he has another filly, Too Phat Too Fly by Bezrin, whom he rates as a Guineas contender.
She finished second in two Listed events in Cape Town, over 1 200m and 1 500m respectively, before travelling to Durban to run in the Grade 1 Thekwini Stakes over 1600m at Greyville on Gold Cup day.
She finished a 3,85 length sixth, but Kotzen said, “I thought it was an incredible run. It was her first time going clockwise, and she came from stone last and made up a lot of ground. “Richard (Fourie) was impressed and said she would be his preferred Fillies Guineas horse.”