Young Antwun connections celebrate

News
The connections of Young Antwun, the three year old son of West Man and Soul Seeker are celebrating after landing the highest pay cheque on offer so far at Borrowdale race course in the 2014/15 Zimbabwe horse racing season.

The connections of Young Antwun, the three year old son of West Man and Soul Seeker are celebrating after landing the highest pay cheque on offer so far at Borrowdale race course in the 2014/15 Zimbabwe horse racing season.

By Michael Kariati

The Zimbabwean bred gelding’s superb finish in the Jacaranda Free Handicap rewarded owner PJ Moor, trainer Amy Bronkhorst, jockey Kark Zechner and groomer Moses Tsurudzo with a pay cheque of US$8 400, the highest for any connections at Borrowdale race course since the season started.

Ironically, Moses Tsurudzo’s brother Lawrence also looks after horses in the same stable and is the groomer of Equina, the proud winner of the Castle Tankard, the OK Challenge the Champions Fillies Stakes and with Zechner as the pilot.

With the major races like the US$50 000 Tankard and the US$40 000 OK Challenge still to come this season, the US$14 000 Jacaranda Free Handicap has so far offered the highest stake money since racing resumed in September after a two month break.

The Sable Flyers, the Zimbabwe National Army and the Zimbabwe Republic Police Charity races all had a stake money of US$9 000 with the races in between them having offered US$4 500 and US$7 500 in stake money.

The winner’s prize money from the Jacaranda Free Handicap will go a long way in helping Bronkhorst in her cause for the champion trainer’s title as the winner gets the prize on the basis of total stake money accumulated throughout the season.

Making her debut last season, Bronkhorst finished fourth with the title going to Lisa Harris with Kirk Swanson just behind second place. In between Bronkhorst and Swanson was Ghokan Terzi.

For coming second in the Jacaranda Free Handicap, the heavily favoured Atso’s Scheme from the Corne Spies stable received US$2 800 while third placed Will Pays from the yard of the Sebastien D’Aquino stable was a US$1 750 winner.

Apart from being a Zimbabwean bred horse, what is also encouraging about Young Antwun is that she has shown a lot of promise having made her debut as a two year old on March 23 this year and winning his first race ever ahead of Hollywood Babe.

Having been assigned Zechner as his regular jockey, Young Antwun was also placed in his second race coming fourth in a 1 000 metre race which was won by Picalilly, another of the rising young Zimbabwean horses.

As a 20/1 outsider. Not only did Young Antwun make his connections happy but the punters too. She paid out a huge US$14.00 to those who placed faith in him for winning the race.

In the swingers she also dished out good financial rewards, giving out US$8,30 with Atso’s Scheme and US$9,50 with Will Pays.

However, at only three years old, Young Antwun still has a long way to go before she can compete with the likes of the Equina, Captain’s Tiger, A King Is Born, Gentle Brook, and Ginepri in the Grade One and Grade Two races.