One eye Is ‘King’

Winter Games made good use of his light weight and stayed on gamely to holdoff a late-charging favourite Gladatorian to land the Listed Kings Cup, the race the harbinger of South Africa’s Champions Season. Jumping from his inside gate, Mathew Thackeray had no hesitation in taking Mike Miller’s runner to the front and given the right-handed nature of KZN courses, Winter Games had his good eye on the rail.
Thackeray
But Thackeray was not taking any prisoners and went lengths clear going up the hill with his opposition seeming confident that he had pressed the accelerator a little too early.
However, it was only in the final furlong, with Winter Games slowing down and Gladatorian and Diani chasing, that the race became a contest. Favourite Gladatorian was game in defeat as he made up many lengths in the straight only to go down by the narrowest of margins but he was giving the winner 10.5kg which was probably the difference between winning and defeat.
Never the less it was a tremendous pipe-opener given that he was returning from a three-month break.
Vikings Revenge
Possibly the most impressive winner on the day was the Miller-trained Vikings Revenge who turned in a sparkling debut as he spread-eagled the field in the card opener. It is seldom that you get 16-1 about a Miller-trained juvenile but the son of promising sire Eric The Red was allowed to run ‘loose’.
Stable rider Tristan Godden, and confirmed by Miller, said that they had not done much with the colt on the home gallops but he caught the eye of paddock watchers and turned in a performance that has G1 Gold Medallion written all over it in spite of this being a 1400m contest.
Godden had no he...