The Grade 2 Colorado King Stakes is often perceived as a curtain raiser to the Grade 1 Premier’s Champions Challenge, which this year will be run on Saturday 30 April
The Colorado King Stakes will be run on the Standside track at Turffontein on Saturday and is a conditions’ race while the Champions Challenge is run at weight-for-age. However, both are over 2000m on the Standside track.
Zillzaal won the Grade 1 Summer Cup over this course and distance in 2019 and despite his up-and-down form since then, he bounced back to his best last time to win the Listed Drum Star Handicap over 1800m at Turffontein most convincingly.
He received a 2kg penalty for that win but still comes into this race as the best weighted runner, so if he is back to his best form, this Sean Tarry-trained six-year-old gelding could be the one they will all have to beat.
Jockey Richard Fourie has had a lot of success when coming up from Cape Town in recent months and Tarry has engaged him to ride the son of Silvano.
Under the race conditions, fillies and mares receive a 2.5kg allowance and that puts Mike de Kock-trained Sparkling Water strongly into the mix. The four-year-old daughter of Silvano has come into her own in no uncertain manner this season and has won four of her five starts.
Her lone defeat came in the Summer Cup where she landed the widest of draws and ended up too far back. But she did produce the fastest 400m to finish to make up some 10 lengths in the straight and end up just 4.50 lengths off the winner.
Since then, she has gone on to win over two more races, but over 2400m and 2800m respectively, so she will be coming down in distance. Turffontein is a tough 2000m though, and if there is a lot of rain, which has been commonplace this summer, it will make the track even more testing.
Also, she is reunited with jockey S’manga Khumalo who is undefeated on her.
Shangani is an interesting runner. He has only raced seven times but has won five of those and finished third in his other two starts.
The only concern is that when a horse is put over long distances from his third start with great success, that horse has to be an out-and-out stayer
However, trainer Paul Peter rates this gelding highly and Shangani does have log-leading jockey Warren Kennedy in the irons. He was a runaway winner of his last start over 2400m at Turffontein and this son of Soft Falling Rain cannot be ignored.
Clive Robinson
