Woodhill Racing trainer Glen Kotzen broke a frustrating six week drought in the Cape when saddling a very welcome, and emotional double, at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday.
Glen Kotzen played a material role in Chad Little’s return to the saddle and the duo show their emotion after Bombers In The Sky won (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
While their Summerveld satellite yard enjoyed winners over New Year up in KZN, the Paarl branch of the popular family operation have been tearing their hair out.
But, as it always does in racing, the wheel turned, and it did so in style on a sun-drenched afternoon.
“This was the first morning I woke up with a smile where we took the bloods and everything was fine. It’s been a dreadful time and I must thank my owners for their patience and a special mention and best wishes to Rob MacNab who was admitted to hospital on Friday. Hopefully this win will get his heart-rate up ,” said Glen Kotzen, who probably found the winner’s podium with the aid of his GPS and will feel rejuvenated about his prospects of acquiring additional equine ammunition at the CRS Summer Sale on Thursday .
The drought broke with a 1-2 in the third where JP van der Merwe got the Vercingetorix gelding Circumbendibus – which means an indirect way of expressing something – up to beat his gallant and lesser fancied stablemate Tripping Thunder, on whom Chad Little looked a winner inside the distance.
Bred by Ten Einde Farm, Circumbendibus was winning at his eighth outing and could go on from here which will excite part owner Devin O’Brien, whose first winner it was.
“I could become addicted to this,” he chirped, and the young man has certainly started in style, some of his partners in the gelding having already celebrated a Hollywoodbets Durban July victory!
The next Woodhill winner came up in the seventh race when Chad Little rode a superbly judged race from the front on the Lancaster Bomber gelding Bombers In The Sky, who was shedding his maiden at his ninth start after placed efforts indicated he was overdue.
It was a special win as it was the first for the Kotzen-Little combination since the jockey’s amazing return, with the support and assistance of the Woodhill Team, to the saddle in November.
A R475 000 Cape Premier Yearling Sale graduate, Bombers In The Sky was bred by a big-hitting partnership of Drakenstein Stud, Katom & Maine Chance, and is out of the Giant’s Causeway mare, Song Of Happiness.
The next Hollywoodbets Kenilworth racemeeting will be on Saturday 25 January – WSB Cape Town Met day!
