Hawwaam takes full honours on Champions Day
Hawwaam, ridden by jockey Anton Marcus, wins the Premier's Champions Challenge.
RUNNING clear from the rest of the field towards the finishing line, Hawwaam, ridden by jockey Anton Marcus, underlined his prominence as one of the best in his category of late.
The last big meeting of the season, Champions Day, was held on May 4 at Turffontein Racecourse.
Hawwaam and jockey Marcus made it home to capture the Grade 1 R4-million Premier’s Champions Challenge for trainer Mike de Kock on Champions Day. They won by four lengths from stable horse Cascapedia, with Divine Odyssey a neck further back in third.
Marcus, who was riding Hawwaam for the first time, had him placed well during the race, but once they hit the straight there was no turning back for him and he drew away from the rest of the field to notch up a clear win.
Marcus said, “We discussed it once (to place him behind the rest of the field in the beginning) about 10 days ago. There was no pressure from Michael (de Kock) about this horse. I was going to allow him to dictate to me. I wanted cover, but he came out a tad aggressively, but in saying that, if the pacemaker wasn’t there I would have been happy to do my own thing on him. He’s the best horse in the race.”
Hawwaam has now won five of his six starts. De Kock said, “He only beat a (merit rated) 107 and a 105 today and he did it very well. He’s still needs to earn that respect in beating slightly stronger fields than this. We felt a bit of pressure today because he’s a young horse who hasn’t taken on older horses.
“Both him and Soqrat are going to be nominated for the Daily News. I’m not going to be stubborn and go down (to Durban) for a bad draw again. It’s go-kart racing at Greyville these days unfortunately, so a bad draw would probably cost him a start there.
“After that I will probably enter them both in the Gold Challenge, but I’m not going to be stupid and stubborn as I was last night and go down to race from a bad draw.”
Piere Strydom, from Alberton, won the Grade 1 Computaform Sprint on Pacific. The win gave trainer Brett Crawford his second Computaform Sprint victory, the first being aboard Laisserfaire.
Gavin Lerena from the South on Sunshine Silk won the Grade 3 Gold Bowl.
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