Yogas Govender and Aldo Domeyer
Cape trainer Yogas Govender won the KZN Summer Challenge, which reached a climax at Scottsville on Sunday with the running of the three finals. Govender,who is private trainer to Sabine Plattner, and trains out of Rondeberg on the Cape West Coast, has a satellite yard in KZN.
The 2013 J&B Met winning trainer put the cherry on the top of a good year for his operation. The KZN Summer Challenge series, an excellent initiative by the racing operator in KZN, is probably also one of the most poorly marketed racing events in South Africa. If you have never heard of it, don’t feel too bad.
With the amount of money pumped in to the project, one would have thought that it would get the promotion and exposure it so richly deserves, and also eventually hopefully extend to other provinces. The series was designed to give the average handicapper in that province an opportunity to compete for larger stakes. It ran from 11 August to 19 November 2013.
Three final races for a stake of R150 000 each were run over 1200m, 1600m and 1950m, on Sunday and trainers will be given a chance to earn an incentive bonus.
The incentive bonus was determined on last month and paid to trainers, whose pre-entered horses finished in the top 3 positions in the final log on 20 November 2013.
The top three finishers are as follows:
1 SHOES ‘N COMPANY 5G Yogas Govender winning cheque of R20 000
2 MALUTI 5G Greg & Karen Anthony winning cheque of R10 000
3 KING JACE 4G Garth Puller winning cheque of R5 000
On Sunday, the three finals were run as follows:
R200 000 GOLD CIRCLE WITNESS KZN SUMMER CHALLENGE FINAL 1600
Won by Big Bird trained by Pat Lunn
R200 000 GOLD CIRCLE WITNESS KZN SUMMER CHALLENGE FINAL 1950
Won by Barcelona Boy trained by Mark Dixon
R200 000 GOLD CIRCLE WITNESS KZN SUMMER CHALLENGE FINAL 1200
Won by Cossack General trained by Garth Puller
