The in-form Craig Zackey filled his Christmas stocking with three winners at the Vaal on Tuesday, including a well-taken feature double on the restructured card.
Craig Zackey claims the day’s double feature on Count Invicto (Pic – JC Photos)
With the two non-black type features delayed four days, Zackey was in a festive mood as he followed up on his win on Pomodoro’s Jet in the afternoon’s top-liner, with a smooth victory on the Lucky Houdalakis-trained 3yo Count Invicto in the R175 000 WSB Heritage Consolation.
“He went down to the start so well. He’s a horse on the up, and he’s decent,” added Zackey.
“I said to the guys, why go for the Grand Heritage when we can take our chances here and have confidence. In his first two wins he won over 1200m and ground them away. I think he will enjoy it further,” added the delighted trainer.
Defying any favourable draw conspiracy theories, Zackey kept Invicto (2-1) to his outside station and he strode on well inside the 250m to beat the 17-10 Confederate by 1,50 lengths in a time of 86,65 secs.
The grey Key News (50-1) was a further 1,50 lengths back in third, with Jury’s Out (17-2) in fourth.
A winner of 3 races with a place from 4 starts, Count Invicto took his stakes earnings to R248 750. He was a R120 000 BSA National 2yo Sale graduate and is raced by Messrs M Havenga, Lucky Houdalakis, M J van Staden and his breeder.
Bred by Stone Hill Stud, the winner is a son of Royal Mo (Uncle Mo) out of the twice winning Imperial Stride mare Idle Hour, who was also trained by Lucky Houdalakis.
