Last season’s champion two-year-old male Delago Deluxe had little difficulty recording his first success of the current term when quickly disposing of four rivals in the Need For Speed Sprint over 1000m at Kenilworth on Monday, writes MATTHEW LIPS.
Delago Deluxe proved disappointing in the first three starts of his three-year-old campaign and made no show when finishing seventh in the Gr2 Diadem Stakes in December, but trained Mike Bass fitted the colt with blinkers for the first time in this conditions event for three-year-olds. Delago Deluxe was nicely weighted if near his best and started as a 4/10 favourite, with Royal Tribe the 33/10 second choice of punters. Power Dive started as the 15/2 third favourite, with the other two available at almost any price.
Delago Deluxe was very quickly away, but was content to then settle into third place early on as Offertory and Royal Tribe disputed the lead. Power Drive raced in fourth, with Lake Geneva completely outpaced in the initial stages and soon finding himself a few lengths behind the other quartet. The hot favourite always looked to be travelling strongly under Anton Marcus, and came forward to lead inside the last 300m. He soon skated clear and romped away to win by a wide margin from Lake Geneva, who ran on strongly from far back to come out easily second best. Power Dive finished third as Royal Tribe and Offertory weakened to occupy the last two places.
This was routine stuff for Delago Deluxe, and one would have had to seriously worry about his future prospects if he didn’t come through the test with some aplomb, but he won in emphatic fashion. It would be very premature to suggest he is right back to the form which saw him win four races including the Gr1 Gold Medallion from as many starts as a two-year-old, but he showed plenty of zip with the first-time blinkers and could not really have done much more than beat the rather sparse opposition in the manner which he did.
Should connections opt to go that route, a race like the Gr1 Cape Flying Championship at Kenilworth later in January would present Delago Deluxe with a far more searching test of his current ability, but sprinting looks to be very much his forte and that would appear to be a viable target as it is the only remaining major speed test of the Cape summer season.
Australian-bred Delago Deluxe is a son of Encosta De Lago and is the second foal of Flying Spur mare Succeeding, who won three races between 1400m/1600m. Delago Deluxe’s second dam Staging won ten races up to 1600m, including four Gr2 events, and produced the Gr1 winners Duporth and Excites and the Gr2 winner Tickets. Bought for Aus $550 000 at the 2010 Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Delago Deluxe was initially trained by Charles Laird before transferring to Bass at the end of his juvenile season and has won five times from eight starts, earning R937 500 for owners Ingrid and Markus Jooste.
