Majestic bargain-buy may floor them all
No matter the result, bargain-buy Majestic Mambo will head for the desert sands of Dubai when the battle is done in tomorrow’s Vodacom Durban July.
Owner-breeder Mary Slack last Tuesday bought a share in trainer Paul Peter’s stable star and the three-year-old colt will join trainer Mike de Kock after the July and go into quarantine en route to next year’s Dubai World Cup Carnival. He will race under Slack’s famous black, scarlet cap silks in the July.
Peter picked Majestic Mambo at a 2016 ready-to-run sale and secured him for just R40 000 for his brothers’ Hyperpaint Syndicate. The colt has already earned more than 15 times his purchase price and could turn out to be one of the bargains of all time if he comes good on the battlefields of Meydan.
“I’m really looking forward to Saturday because Majestic Mambo is my first runner in the Durban July. We are going to miss him here, but he’s an excellent horse for Dubai and I’m happy he’s going,” said Peter. “Races in Dubai are run at a genuine pace and that will really suit him. And you can’t have a better trainer to take him to Dubai than Mike.”
Majestic Mambo won his first three career starts in the manner of a future star but it all went wrong for him in the SA Triple Crown this year.
This oft slow starter ran downfield in the Gauteng Guineas, parted company with his rider when making good headway in the SA Classic and then made a hash of the start in the SA Derby, in which only 4.80 lengths behind.
But Majestic Mambo put all those runs behind him in the recent Daily News 2000 on his Greyville debut, unwinding a strong run from last place and going down only 0.75 lengths to Surcharge.
“Things just didn’t go right in the Triple Crown. He had bad luck, he was incorrectly ridden,” said Peter. “He’s the best I’ve had him and I’m expecting a top run in the July. Yes, it’s tough to come from behind at Greyville, but that’s his style of running.”