MONDAY 17th - THURSDAY 20th AUGUST 2015
No. 2174 ISSN 1023 / 6996
FLAMINGO PARK 12:20pm (Monday) p.3
GREYVILLE POLY 12:45pm (Tuesday) p.10 KENILWORTH 1:25pm (Wednesday) p.21
VAAL SAND 1:00pm (Thursday) p.28
PINNACLE STAKES at Vaal on Thursday
D
While many of the major yards countrywide are taking it easy during the month of August with the inevitable housekeeping of vaccinations and wellearned breaks for their big guns, Mike De Kock approaches the Vaal topliner on Thursday with all guns blazing.
e Kock only has five runners on the sand eight-race programme, and they all line up in the Place Accumulator opener, a Pinnacle Stakes run over 1600m, where he effectively saddles half the field. Our multiple champion trainer would have been rather pleased with
his eight Gr1’s that formed part of his 153 winners (17% strike rate) and R19,61-million in gross stake earnings for the season just past. This was a fourth-best ever stakes performance for the powerful yard, even though it fell way short of the new South African record of R25 924 950 set by new Champion Trainer Sean Tarry, who lifted his first National Title.
Equus
The De Kock team was also busy at Emperors Palace last Tuesday evening where son Matthew deputised and collected three Equus Awards. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai’s Entisaar was crowned Champion Two-Year-Old Filly. She won the Gr1 Allan Robertson Championship at Scottsville in May as her major effort. Alboran Sea, owned by the partnership of Mary Slack and Michael Javett, was
awarded Champion ThreeYear-old Filly following her wins in the Gr1 Cape Flying Championship and the Gr1 Computaform Sprint. This was a tight category and the filly a deserved winner, by virtue of her open-company exploits. Then Mogok’s son Wild One, the recent (new season) winner of the Gr1 e-lan Property Group Gold Cup, was awarded Champion Stayer of the Season. He is owned by Sean Philips, whose first Gr1 winner he was.
Supreme
On Thursday we may enjoy a peek into De Kock’s Supreme Cup (the one they used to call Emerald Cup) aspirations when he sends out an interesting quintet, headed by the Asiatic Boy filly, Ahlaam. Cont. p.2
der Award
Equ
ding Bree us Outstan
Tel: Mike Sharkey 082 372 2682 www.highlandsfarmstud.co.za