Muzi Yeni steers Jaguar to a smart win over He’s A Nadoe in the Kimberley Classic (JC Photos)
The Mauritzfontein Stud bred Tiger Ridge gelding Jaguar carried the flag for the locals when he led all the way to win the R100 000 Kimberley Classic at Flamingo Park on Monday. Muzi Yeni rode a confident race on the powerful galloper over the mile trip to outpoint Justin Snaith’s PE challenger, He’s A Nadoe.
The non black type event hosted a fourteen strong line up of modestly rated one time winning 3yo’s, except for the Sham filly Princess Creo, who has won twice.
So while it was no serious classic in the literal sense of the word, the generous stake certainly provided the incentive for visitors to make the effort and high riding Justin Snaith came to town with two runners.
Unsurprisingly He’s A Nadoe was installed favourite no doubt based partly on the fact that Richard Fourie was in the saddle, but also by virtue of his fair PE polytrack form.
But after jumping well, he was always chasing the frontrunning Jaguar and had nothing to come when called upon for a big lift in the final 200m.
Muzi Yeni rode the winner
On the flipside, the 5 to 1 Jaguar ran all the way to the line and won by 1,50 lengths in a time of 101,46 secs.
He’s A Nadoe hung on for second, ahead of the fast finishing recent maiden winner, Precious Priscilla.
Prepared to the minute by Coerie Lensley, Jaguar has now won 2 races with 4 places from 9 starts and stakes of R124 125,
He is bred at Mauritzfontein from Tiger Ridge, out of the four time winning Fort Wood mare, Chinchuna, who raced for Ormond Ferraris.
While Richard Fourie had a frustratingly blank afternoon, log leader S’manga Khumalo raised the bar again and scored a treble, to further strengthen his position at the top of the log with eight weeks to go.
