Hawwaam and Soqrat, Queen’s Plate

WE’re in for a treat in Saturday’s Gr1 Queen’s Plate, because Mike de Kock sounds quite bullish that four-year-old ace Hawwaam can give his year-older contemporaries Rainbow Bridge and Do It Again plenty of cheek from a good draw.

Soqrat, meanwhile, will come into the race fresh and well, and having proved that he enjoys the course and distance, won’t be disgraced either.

Mike said on Thursday: “We are pretty happy with the way Hawwaam and Soqrat have gone. Obviously they had to get to Cape Town early, to a new environment foreign to them. So while they haven’t had an ideal prep, we can’t complain about the way things have gone.

“Both runners travelled very well, their work has been good and they seem to have adapted to the tracks at Milnerton quite well.

“Soqrat comes into the race fresh, I had to freshen him after three hard runs. My gut feel is that Hawwaam is in better form at the moment, but Soqrat is a funny horse. Sometimes it looks as if he’ll need the run, but he reserves his best for race day.”

He added about Hawwaam: “He has been in Cape Town for a while and he’s very fit. He will have his third run after a rest coming off a good win.

“We’ll be racing against some serious horses like Do It Again and Rainbow Bridge, and we are the ones that had to do the travelling. We won’t see those runners in Johannesburg, the only place where they will take each other on is in the Cape.

“We’re looking forward to the contest.”