After a year of absence, six-year-old Approval Rating is back at Borrowdale Racecourse to prove wrong critics who claimed his days were over.
by Michael Kariati
The 2013 Zimbabwe Guineas winner was struggling at the Racecourse before relocating to South Africa at the end of the 2013/14 season where he has been campaigning for a year in Gauteng.
The Scott Brothers-bred horse has now returned to Borrowdale Park Racecourse, where he launched his career, and is accompanied by South African champion jockey Andrew Fortune. He is now housed under the Ghokan Terzi yard.
Approval Rating’s first race at Borrowdale Park Racecourse was on August 5 2012 when he won a 1 600 metre race while carrying 57kg.
The South African son of Misque Approval (US) fired warning shots upon his return at the course with a half-length destruction of Pegwell in the 1 000 metre Commander Airforce of Zimbabwe Borrowdale Sprint which marked the start of the 2015/16 Zimbabwe horse racing season.
What made his win remarkable was that it was achieved against some of the best horses at Borrowdale Racecourse, including Thriller in Manila who was a distant fourth, as well as Gentle Brook and Alula Borealis.
The track was fast and Approval Rating’s time of 56,62 seconds was not too far off the course record of the 56,01 seconds set by Sports Hero in July 2013 while carrying only 55kg.
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However, bookmakers had cut Approval Rating to 13/20 favourite. This meant low financial rewards for punters as he could only guarantee them $1,60 for a totalisator win and $2,40 in the swingers with Pegwell. He dished out $1,90 with third-placed Picallily.
The good news for punters, however, is that Approval Rating is likely to take his place in the Graded Races where he will not be the favourite and will guarantee them huge financial pickings.
The Graded races are the Grade One Castle Tankard, Grade Three OK Grand Challenge and the Republic Cup. The three carry stake money of over $40 000 and are run between May and July.
Since the Borrowdale Sprint was his first running after a year, it cannot be used as a barometer for what the future holds for Approval Rating. Only when Terzi brings him to peak condition will the racing fraternity be able to judge the current strength of the son of Tsitskamma.
Approval Rating began to show promise when he made a splendid run on his way to winning the third leg of the Triple Crown, the Zimbabwe Derby as a three-year-old on February 24 2013.
What made this the talk of Borrowdale was that Approval Rating, then trained by Kenyan Nuno Nur, was trailing the rest of the field and came from nowhere to beat overwhelming favourite Newton Power in a last gasp attempt.
Approval Rating graduated into mainstream racing along with the likes of Final Fling, Gentle Brooke, King Halal, Menacing, and Quick Glance. He won five of his first seven races and was placed in one.
Since then, Approval Rating has failed to reproduce that form and at the age of six, his career shows only 10 titles. His return to the home of Zimbabwe horse racing provides him an opportunity to improve on that record and win more admirers.
The next feature race at Borrowdale Park Racecourse is the Sable Flyers Handicap, which could this time feature champion jockey Karl Zechner, who was surprisingly missing in the seven races that marked the opening day of the season.
