A return to her favourite course and distance assisted Sheik Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Maktoum’s Pivotal-filly Amanee to lift the Gr 2 KRA Fillies Guineas at Greyville on Saturday evening.

When last seen in action over the Greyville mile on 31 July 2011, Amanee defeated Felix The Cat in the Gr1 Thekwini Stakes and while she hasn’t won a race since, she showed enough in her recent outings (including a 5^th place to Europa Point in the Empress Club Stakes, Gr 1), to show that she was ready for a big run again.

Punters who had studied her form carefully would have helped themselves to odds of as high as 10-1 before Amanee started at 11-2 and she didn’t let them down.

After a slow start, Amanee found herself among the backmarkers when Bambina Stripes came down alongside her after clipping heels, but as fate would have it she escape the incident and moved up into midfield near the rail as the field started the run for home.

Going into the last 200m, Amanee was poised to challenge and she let loose with a powerful run to overhaul Reason To Believe with 50m to run. Felix The Cat was again in the firing line, confirming the Thekwini form by finishing third.

David, who has based himself at Summerveld to assist the De Kock team during the KZN Champions Seasons, thanked Mike for his support and said: “Amanee ran last week and on that I told the stable she’d be a big runner here. We were about four lengths back and she took time to quicken, but when she changed legs, she flew and won a very good race.”

Assistant trainer Nathan Kotzen commented: “Amanee just needed a couple of runs to come back to peak  fitness.”

Amanee has won four of 11 starts and R488, 125 in stakes.

Headline photo: Amanee (yellow silks), runs on well to win.