Deliver The Power - impressive turn of foot
Three-year-olds have been in great form against more seasoned campaigners in a variety of Stakes races during the last couple of months and the only two sophomores in a field of 11 occupied the first two places when Deliver The Power handed Midnight Serenade a 2.5 lengths drubbing in the Tommy Hotspur Handicap over the straight 1000m at Turffontein on Tuesday 14th February, writes MATTHEW LIPS.
Midnight Serenade had been amongst the leading juveniles of last term and was strongly supported from an ante-post call of 7/1 to start as the marginal 33/10 favourite here. A tight betting market saw Deliver The Power (bidding for his fourth win from as many starts since being gelded last July) go off as the 7/2 second choice ahead of 75/20 chance Magico. The latter was bidding to win the Tommy Hotspur for a second year in succession and was racing for the first time as a gelding. Ante-post favourite Storm Vanidoso drifted from an opening price of 5/2 to start as a 4/1 chance in a race which plainly had punters deeply divided over the likely outcome.
Storm Vanidoso was quickly away and led early, with Kayhaladin, Midnight Goddess and Mannequin all prominent as Deliver The Power raced a couple of lengths off the action. Magico was also a few lengths adrift of the leader, with Midnight Serenade outpaced initially and racing amongst the backmarkers in a fairly close knit field. Storm Vanidoso began to weaken inside the last 400m, and coming past the 300m it almost looked as if Deliver The Power had been dropped into the race by helicopter.
Quickening impressively, Deliver The Power put the race to bed in a handful of strides and eventually bolted in by 2.5 lengths under jockey Gavin Lerena. Midnight Serenade was running on wider out, but had no chance of troubling his fellow three-year-old. Furious Dancer is probably best known for his exploits on sand, but he has been Stakes placed on turf before now and did so again here, staying on to finish only a neck behind Midnight Serenade in third place. Second World did his best work late despite being 4 kgs out at the weights and got to within a head of Furious Dancer. Magico never got going before he was beaten 4.75 lengths into eighth place and it was subsequently reported by the veterinary surgeon that the 2011 Tommy Hotspur winner was not striding out freely. Storm Vanidoso may have been found out by this considerable rise in class and faded to finish ninth, seven lengths behind the winner.
Deliver The Power is trained by Dominic Zaki, who admitted afterwards to having been a bit concerned that his gelding’s 109 merit rating may have been a bit steep, but it proved to be nothing of the sort and Deliver The Power ran to something like a 114 on a line through his contemporary Midnight Serenade. That is before six pounds is deducted for WFA and a new net mark of 108 may still not do Deliver The Power justice. He has only been beaten twice, once on debut and once when plainly failing to stay 1400m as a two-year-old, and the fears which his trained expressed before this race that 1000m may be on the sharp side for the gelding proved to be equally unfounded.
Deliver The Power looks to be a seriously good sprinter in the making and is likely to be aimed at the Gr 1 Computaform Sprint over the same course-and-distance in April. There are several other options for him before then, but Zaki remarked that “we’ll see how he takes each race” as he builds up for his first tilt at Gr 1 level. If it comes to pass, the possibility that Val De Ra will be kept in training for one more start in the Computaform Sprint would present Deliver The Power with a much sterner test of his mettle, but it’s unlikely that he would disgrace himself in any way.
A son of the emerging Danehill stallion Toreador, Deliver The Power is the first foal of unraced Tara’s Halls mare Tara’s Destiny and was bred by David Hepburn-Brown at his Hemel ‘n Aarde Stud. Bought for R55 000 at the 2010 National Two Year Old Sale, Deliver The Power is proving to be a real bargain for a group of owners which include his trainer. He has won six of his eight starts, earning R396 450, with the promise of considerably more to come. This first Feature race success came at a good time for his breeder, for Deliver The Power has a half sister by sire newcomer Meteor Shower (like Toreador, a son of Danehill) on the Cape Premier Yearling Sale Book II on Sunday 4th March.
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