A horse whose early career was thrown off track by the handicapper, the 4yo Australian-bred Al Muthana registered his first stakes success when an easy winner of the R175 000 Listed Wolf Power 1600 run on soft ground at Turffontein on Sunday.
Trainer Mike de Kock has been patient with the Shadwell home-bred, and it was a no frills win as Muzi Yeni guided the gelding to an easy off-the-pace victory.
He scored by over 5 lengths beating Stone Cold in a time of 98 secs. A strung out field stretched to near 27 lengths behind him.
“He was 105 as a young horse, came down to 91 and has built again from there. He’s typical of horses we see week in and week out – with careers hampered by ratings that are way too high,” Mike said, and while Al Muthana wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, he looks to now go on and win his races.
“He enjoyed the soft track too, I’m pretty sure of that. He’s at a high, got his confidence back. A number if factors contributed to this. He was impressive off this 109 and while the soft track may have helped to make that look as impressive as it did, he could be headed for bigger things now.”
Al Muthana has won 5 of his 11 starts with 3 places for stakes of R388 625.
A 4yo Shadwell home-bred half-brother to Gr2 winner Wawail, Al Muthana was foaled and raised at Yarraman Park and is by smart sprinter Deep Field (Northern Meteor) from the Gr2 winning Redoute’s Choice mare, Daana. – extracts from Sporting Post.
Assistant trainer Alson Ndzilana and jockey Muzi Yeni.
