De Kock mulls English expansion
A Group One winner in England may be the next milestone for trainer Mike de Kock after sending out the 3,000th winner of his career at Turffontein last Saturday.
Janoobi, expertly ridden by Piere Strydom, took the eighttimes champion trainer to that total when winning the grade 2 Betting World Guineas.
However, De Kock is not a man to rest on his laurels and he said recently: “I’m not really one to look back, I prefer to look forward.” With that in mind, De Kock is contemplating enlarging his Newmarket-based UK operation to accommodate largely South African-bred thoroughbreds from where they will be able to campaign in Europe and the Middle East.
De Kock has had some success with his raids on Turkey. He feels that country and Qatar, which will host the soccer World Cup in 2022, could be happy hunting grounds South African owners.
While De Kock’s son, Mathew, had a day to remember at Turffontein with Janoobi, Rafeef and Nother Russia winning their races, his father was in Dubai, where the celebrations were marred by a fatal injury to five-year-old Ertijaal.
Running in the grade 1 Jebel Hatta at Meydan, Ertijaal fractured a sesamoid shortly after the start of the 1,800m race and had to be destroyed.
“This put a dampener on our night after our wonderful day in SA and it’s a big blow for us. Our condolences to owner Sheikh Hamdan — we’ve lost a good horse and it’s very unfortunate,” De Kock wrote on his website.
Regarding the excitement of the stable’s red-letter day at Turffontein, he said he was “glad the 3,000 winners came up in feature races and with Mathew at the helm”.
A Dubai World Cup win still eludes the stable but Mubtaahij, second in the race in 2016, will for try to go one better on March 25. London bookies rate him a 7-1 chance behind the world’s highest-rated horse, Arrogate, who is the 1-3 favourite.
Jockey Callan Murray, who felt Heavenly Blue might have troubled Janoobi in the Guineas with a clear passage, will partner the De Kock-trained Fareeq in the seventh race at Turffontein on Tuesday. The Aussie-bred gelding, fourth in the recent Wolf Power 1600, will have to be at the top of his game to beat Top Shot, although these two horses look an attractive swinger combination.
Top Shot represents the successful Gary Alexander-Andrew Fortune team, which captured the final race at Turffontein on Saturday with the four-yearold Fangia.
The same combination could take the sixth race with Prada Princess, who is overdue to leave the maiden ranks. Fortune may have most to fear from Michael Azzie’s runner, Just A Jet.
While Negroamaro has been more a friend of bookies than punters this term, the grey will be the hot favourite to beat just six rivals in the second race.