Milnerton trainer Piet Steyn said he had struggled to find owners for his Kenilworth Tuesday debut winner Katak – but stalwart owner Marsh Shirtliff eventually came to the party for a half share on the advice of jockey Bernard Fayd’herbe.
“These guys own big horses with big stables. It’s tough for us small guys. There are just no owners and no horses. I have been giving everything to racing since 1980 – and racing hasn’t been giving back to me,” lamented Steyn, who owns the smart winner in partnership with Shirtliff.
Ironically Bernard Fayd’herbe was on the stable elect What A Man (5-2) who plodded into a well beaten fourth.
Katak is a son of Ridgemont Highlands’ promising sire Potala Palace and the Highlands bred colt defied greeness to fly up late and score by a length and a quarter under Grant Behr. He is out of the Windrush mare Sapphire Silk.
Tuesday’s winner is the ninth from just 20 runners to have emerged from Potala Palace’s current crop of three-year-olds.
This crop has also produced Gr3 Pretty Polly Stakes winner Palace Of Dreams and Gr3 Strelitzia Stakes heroine Singforafa, as well as the very smart filly Snow Palace.
Winner of the Gr1 Premier’s Champion Stakes at two, and from the same female line as Sadler’s Wells, Nureyev, and Blame, Potala Palace has two fillies on offer at February’s Cape Yearling Sale.
