Multiple SA champion trainer Mike de Kock picked up a dramatic shared victory in the Qatar Derby at Al Rayyan, Doha, yesterday with only his second runner in the country. High Chapparal’s son Tannaaf finished with a flourish to dead heat with German challenger, Rogue Runner.
It was another superb feat of training by De Kock as Tannaaf had not raced for six months and the grass track at his base in Dubai had only opened 10 days earlier.
The 2000m race was settled in dramatic fashion in the judge’s box when the original announced decision in favour of victory to Germany’s Rogue Runner by a nose was amended to a dead-heat with Tannaaf.
Mike De Kock
Mike de Kock’s runner had finished fast and wide up the home straight under Wayne Smith and at the line was the width of the course apart from Mario Hofer’s charge, ridden prominently by Colombia-born, Germany-based Eduardo Pedroza.
A re-examination of the photo-finish print with the trainers involved concluded that the two horses were not even a pixel apart and the result was amended to a dead-heat.
For Hofer and owner Eckhard Sauren half the £$500,000 prize was still rich reward for the shrewd €80,000 purchase of Rogue Runner at the Arqana Arc sale in October.
Irish-bred three-year-old Tannaaf races for Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum and was beautifully ridden by jockey Wayne Smith.
He was previously Gr3 and Listed placed in the UK in May 2015 after winning his debut back in August 2014.
