Bang Bang! Two Gun Kid gallops strongly under JP van der Merwe to win the Founders Trophy (Coastal Photos)
The Toreador gelding Two Gun Kid maintained his consistent local form and kept his Algoa Cup hopes on track with a smooth win in Friday’s R90 000 Founders Trophy run over a mile at Arlington.
The former Mike De Kock trained Two Gun Kid has proven a rather shrewd buy for the enterprising Sham family and registered his third win from his fifth run in the Eastern Cape in good style.
Trainer and Owner Dorrie Sham was generous in her praise of the De Kocks, who she said were such ‘open people’ to buy horses from. She also thanked Matthew De Kock and her own son Matthew, whom she said had brokered the deal.
The former Gauteng based Two Gun Kid looked well in and jumped joint 33 to 10 favourite with the Gavin Smith trained Stone Pine.
With Lord Badger slow out, Dancing Kiwi was bounced into a lead by Jonathan Soll from Stone Pine and Extra Cover.
They were hurrying along as they came for home with Dancing Kiwi still there as Bernard Fayd’herbe slipped Blaze Of Fire down the inside rail. Stone Pine looked to be under serious pressure.
In the final 300m Two Gun Kid came forward powerfully and despite lugging in marginally, he staved off a dangerous challenge from Celtic Fire in courageous style.
Two Gun Kid stayed on strongly under JP van der Merwe to win by 0,25 lengths in a time of 97,66 secs.
The evergreen 7yo Celtic Fire earned again at his 49th start and ran into second, ahead of the 20 to 1 longshot Spellcaster.
Assistant trainer Rocky Agrella said that Van Der Merwe had ridden a perfect race. When pressed by AlastairCohen on the success of the day, he said that having high expectation and being brought down to earth was in the nature of racing. “ We can’t have four winners every meeting,” he said with a smile.
Owner Dorrie Sham mentioned Mike De Kock and also paid tribute to a great run from the second placed Celtic Fire.
Jockey JP van der Merwe said things had gone his way. “ We had a nice draw and a galloping weight this time. Last time he took forever to get going and I learnt from that. I got going at the top of straight and made them carry their weight. He dug down deep and is a gutsy horse when he is challenged,” he said.
A R240 000 National Yearling Sale graduate, The Alchemy bred Two Gun Kid is by Toreador out of the five time winning Model Man mare, Trading Up.
He has now won 5 races and run 9 places from his 22 starts, and has amassed stakes of R288 375.
The Algoa Cup is some way off yet, but Two Gun Kid is going the right way.
