Gold Standard to make comeback
Tipped to win a Grade 1 in next four months.
BACK IN TRAINING. Gold Standard (obscured), a top three-year-old last season, is back in training with some big prizes in his crosshairs.
In a sense Gold Standard has become the ‘forgo en horse’ of our racing, with some people even thinking the big colt had left the country.
Nothing could be further from the truth though, as Glen Kotzen’s charge stretched out nicely in a ‘welcome back’ grass gallop at Kenilworth last Saturday morning. The glint in regular jockey Richard Fourie’s eyes afterwards hinted at big things to come.
Last seen in the Sun Met, this son of Trippi ended the season as the highest rated three-year-old in the country at 115.
Drakenstein Stud had bought into the horse before the big race, probably seeing him as a long term successor to his sire.
In spite of his rating he strangely wasn’t even nominated for the Equus Champion Colt award given to Edict Of Nantes (102). He did however comfortably account for that one at level weights both when winning the Selangor Cup and when runner up to William Longsword in the Cape Guineas.
A minor setback after the Met led to the decision to skip the KZN season, and he will provisionally make his racecourse comeback in the Grade 3 Matchem Stakes at Durbanville on 7 October.
Then he will follow the Cape season path of Green Point Stakes, Queens Plate and Met, and by the end of January could have at least one Grade 1 trophy to his name.
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