Call it the Striker magic, call it what you like, but Piere Strydom’s magnificent winning comeback to the saddle after a 14 month absence to win the R600 000 KZN Breeders’ Mile on the KZN Breeders raceday at Hollywoodbets Greyville was a highlight of our local weekend racing.
Out of action since 8 April 2021 with a semi-detached retina, Striker recently turned up the Hollywoodbets Durban July volume, when announcing that he would be returning to attempt to match Anton Marcus’ record of five Durban July winners
The blonde bomber, who turned 56 a week ago, already has July wins on London News (1996), Trademark (2021), Pomodoro (2012) and The Conglomerate (2016) on his impressive cv.
He will ride Belgarion for Justin Snaith in the 2022 renewal of Africa’s richest graded stakes race. And it was for the Snaith team that the Gauteng-based form multiple champion returned on Sunday.
Nexus, on who he had won the 2020 Gr2 Peninsula Handicap in such dazzling style, was his return – and only – mount and Striker did the rest.
Tracking Gr1 speedster Battle Force in a slow-run race, he angled Nexus (9-2) to the inside rail and produced that old magic to win by three quarters in a time of 98,25 secs.
Piere Strydom stomrs clear on Nexus to make it a heroic comeback to the saddle – Battle Force (Craig Zackey) was runner-up (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The victory took Nexus’ earnings over the R1 million marker, and was the best tonic the veteran jockey could have hoped for with his eye on the record prize this coming Saturday.
Nexus, a R1,7 million National Yearling Sale graduate, was bred by Rathmor Stud and hails from a Gr1 family. He is a son of the late Dynasty (Fort Wood) out of the top-class five-time winning Jet Master mare, Mystery Dame.
He has won 8 races with 9 places from 29 starts for stakes of R1 059 225.
