Photo by Liesl King
Friday, 27 January 2012: The magic of Igugu is set to be on display once again when the Mike de Kock trained mare runs in the pinnacle of the Cape's Sizzling Summer Season, the R2.5m, Grade 1, J & B Met (2000m) at Kenilworth on Saturday.
The four-year-old by one of the world's best sires Galileo will start as one of the shortest priced favourites for the J & B Met in years with the feeling being that the rest of the field may be running for the minor races, albeit that they are also valuable with stakes paid down to tenth place.
Igugu's preparation has not been without difficulty for de Kock. The mare has not run since December 4th when she won the Grade 2 Ipe Tombi Challenge Stakes over 1600m at Turffontein. Although she won that race in facile fashion by 5.25L, she then picked up a repiratory infection and missed a week of work.
However, over the infection and safely down in Cape Town after the long float trip from Johannesburg, de Kock is pleased with her condition.
“She travelled well, obviously she has a respiratory infection about three or four weeks ago, so it has not been plan sailing, but clinically she is perfect,” said de Kock
“The trip has been good. They spent about 18 hours on the float down, but it is something she has done before,” he said.
Igugu is stabled in the Kenilworth Quarantine Station situated in the middle of the course due to an outbreak of African Horse Sickness within regulation range of 30km from de Kock's Randjesfontein training stables.
This is not idea from a practical aspect for the stable as all horses in the station are locked into their stables two hours before night fall and are not allowed out until two hours after sunrise as the culicoides midge that transports African Horse Sickness is a nocturnal insect.
Inside the stables all incoming air is controlled to kill parasites and insects with sufficient pressure to ensure when the doors are opened that the controlled air pushes out preventing incoming unwanted live insects under vector protected conditions.
Photo by Liesl King
The stable can only have access to Igugu and her stablemates from Johannesburg when the regulations permit, however they are allowed to work on the Kenilworth track itself.
De Kock chaffs against the regulations with the valuable Igugu left for longer periods than he would like.
“She is an uptight filly as Galileo's can be. She gets very sweaty and that is not ideal, but she is that way inclined so she is not acting out of the ordinary,” he said.
A lack of a natural pacemaker in the race apart from Igugu herself holds no fears for de Kock.
“I think that suits us and she can take the pace up and be right on it,” he said.
Igugu's race performance makes it easy to understand de Kock's confidence in the ability of the mare to race wherever she wants.
As a three-year-old, after being the first filly to win the South African Triple Crown, she took on the older horses in the Grade 1 Durban July over 2200m at Greyville under similar weight conditions to The J & B Met.
Carrying 55kg that day under stable jockey Anthony Delpech the mare raced against the older horses and dominated from start to finish. After racing just behind the leaders, Delpech sent her forward with 400m to run and she took the lead and sustained the run all the way to the line for a length victory.
On Saturday Igugu has 57kg with an ideal barrier seven for Delpech to send her forward for a similar performance. Owned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al Maktoum the mare has raced 11 times for nine wins and two places, with stakes to-date of R4.2m.
“I firmly believe she is world class and I would love to have her in Dubai for this carnival. I just think she is going to get better and she is ideal for Saturday,” summed up de Kock after Igugu's work on Thursday at Kenilworth.
