Royal Navy Ship makes SA debut
KUMARAN Naidoo brings out the former Aiden O’Brien and Paul Lafferty-trained Royal Navy Ship for his South African debut at Scottsville on Sunday.
However, this is a run he will need ahead of his intended engagement in the Gr 2 Peermont Emperor’s Palace Charity Mile on November 5.
He arrived in Naidoo’s yard at the beginning of August and was “quite big” at the time and was also carrying a winter coat.
On Sunday he runs in a MR 95 handicap over 1 200m with 1,5kg claimer Erico Saziso Ngwane aboard.
He is currently “doing well”, but is still “on the big side”, so the run over too short a distance is intended to bring him on.
Grass gallop
Naidoo has given him one grass gallop at Summerveld to date and said he had done “quite well.”
He described him as having a “lovely action” and a “nice temperament for a colt.”
However, he added he would ideally need 2 000 metres.
Royal Navy Ship was born on 8 February 2012, so is in reality a four-yearold, but in South Africa he has been registered as a five-year-old due to the official August 1 birthday for all horses.
The USA-bred War Front colt was bought out of the Aiden O’Brien yard by leading KZN owner Roy Moodley last year and was campaigned by Paul Lafferty in Dubai.
He did not appear to enjoy it out there and ran unplaced in one start on the dirt over a mile and unplaced in two starts on the turf over nine furlongs and ten furlongs respectively.
Slumdogmillionaire
However, he did earn a cheque for fifth place in the ten furlong handicap event and was only 1,5 lengths behind the Gr 1winning former South African horse, Slumdogmillionaire, from whom he was receiving only three pounds.
His only career win came on debut in October 2014 where he beat 21 other twoyear-olds over seven furlongs at the Curragh in yielding conditions.
He completed his two-year-old season by finishing second in a four-runner Gr 3 event over seven furlongs at Leopardstown at odds of 1/6.
When bought out of O’Brien’s yard, after four runs as a three-year-old, he had an official rating of 102.
However, he has now slipped down to 94, so will likely need a bit of luck to get into the Charity Mile where he has a plum draw of five out of 38 entries.
Naidoo and Moodley combined to win the Charity Mile in 2013 with Royal Zulu Warrior.