History on the Poly

Henk Steenkamp

WILL history be made in the Nelson Mandela Bay Racing Poly Challenge on Friday afternoon?

There is a very good chance of that happening in the third and final leg of the Challenge, the R175 000 NBT event over 1600m.

All eyes will be on the visiting five-year-old Western Cape gelding King Regent. He is in a good position to become the first horse to win all three legs of the Challenge.

The Polytrack was installed at Fairview in 2013 with the closing of Arlington. This led to the popular Challenge which started in 2016.

Since then no horse has been able to win all three legs to secure a bonus of R250 000 for his connections.

Gogetthesheriff, trained by Jacques Strydom and owned by Freddie van Onselen, came the closest to that in the very first year of the Challenge.

He won the first two legs and finished third, half a length behind the winner Jet Explorer, in the final leg.

This year King Regent, trained by Glen Kotzen, was a clear winner of the first leg in August over 1200m. He was also an easy winner of the second leg last month over 1400m.

Now King Regent and jockey Denis Schwarz will tackle 1600m. Although it is not a local horse in contention for the bonus, it is expected that the Fairview crowd will support them all the way in their record-breaking attempt.

He is no doubt the horse to beat but it won’t be easy for King Regent. There are capable challengers in the race and some are questioning if King Regent has the stamina to win over 1600m.

King Regent has never won beyond 1400m but Kotzen believes he won’t have any issues seeing out the distance.

He was settled at the back of the field over 1400m last time and ran on beautifully. On that run the son of Dynasty should have no problems stepping up to the mile.

Cherry Ano (Gavin Smith) is probably the biggest danger to the favourite. Bush Tracker and Inherit The Rain are the others to look out for in the field of 8 runners but King Regent will be a popular banker on the day.

The consistent King Regent is owned by Cape residents Martin Wickens and Gisela Burg and they will be on tender hooks, along with the rest of the Fairview crowd, to see if their charge can become a Triple Crown winner.

If King Regent misses out on the R250 000 bonus, the connections will pick up the consolation bonus of R50 000 for the best performing horse in this year’s Challenge.

Bred by Ridgemont, King Regent cost R225 000 at the Cape Yearling Sale and has now earned R1 184 188, with 6 wins and 7 places from 16 starts.

The feature is race 6 of 8 and the runners will face the starter at 14:25.

It is an early start at Fairview on Friday. The first race is at 11:30.