Esteemed Roars Back After 487-Day Absence

There are rare days in racing when things work out perfectly as planned, and Wednesday, 22 July, at Hollywoodbets Scottsville, qualified as one of them.

Long-rested Esteemed carried big hopes. He made a visit to death’s door after an allergic reaction last year and was out for 487 days, but care and patience paid off and he made a thundering winning return, winning Race 7 over 1200m.

Esteemed clocked 67.74s, the fastest time over the distance on the day in the hands of Richard Fourie, who commented: “Today’s 1200m was far too short for him and look what he did. He is a bright prospect, I can’t wait to see what he does next season. He is special. It felt like a working gallop.”

Mike de Kock commented: “Trainers can give horses time, but you’ve got to have owners backing you. The only reason why we stand here today, in this instance, is due to the support of Ridgemont, Devin Heffer and the Heffer family. Things have gone wrong, you name it, he’s had it. But he’s a Group 1 horse.”

Mike explained the long layoff: “Esteemed went for a rest at Ashburton last year and had an allergic reaction to an intra-articular procedure. He had an injection to his fetlock, and reacted badly to the substance. He was very gutsy to have pulled through, he was in an extreme amount of pain due to the reaction.

“Esteemed had multiple surgeries to flush out the substance, and our thanks for that to Manfred Rohwer and Baker McVeigh. He came back to us at the beginning of March and it was a long, protracted build-up. He’s a King’s Plate type horse. We’ll aim him at race in Gauteng to start his campaign.”

Devin Heffer, who races Esteemed with Craig Kieswetter of Ridgemont, shared the excitement and said: “He rested with Nicole from our Life After Racing Centre and this was an amazing comeback after 69 weeks off. He beat a Grade 1 winner in Good For You.”

Trombolines (Gavin Lerena) posted his second career win in Race 4 over 1400m after a brief tussle with Nordic Chief. He came from the strong Errol Flynn formline, was expected to win and did so with a promise of more to come.

Mike said: “It’s nice to be able to ship horses from Mathew’s base at Randjesfontein and back. We look for suitable races in both centres.”

Trombolines competes for Hollywood Racing. He is a Chevely-bred by Querari out of a mare by Mambo In Seattle – scope for more ground.