THERE are quite a few three-year-olds competing in Saturday’s Gr3 Tommy Hotspur Handicap over 1000m at Turffontein and they are coming in with light weights. The best of these could be Mujallad from the Mike de Kock yard, who is in good form and comes into the race carrying just 53.5kg. His last start was over 1160m at this course and he led all the way to hold off Prince Of Kahal by a neck.
He has had one run in the wet but it is hard to assess whether Mujallad will handle the expected soft track as that race was over 1450m on the inside track and was run in driving rain. It was only in the last 200m that he faded out of contention and it could have been the distance more than the going that resulted in an average run. Even under those circumstances, the Australian-bred colt finished fifth, beaten 4.50 lengths by Wonderwall.
Mujallad is one of the fancied runners and is among a group of joint-favourites at 6-1.
“He is the form horse, and very honest. It’s the right place, right time and right rating, and he should be right there,” assistant Mathew de Kock said during the week. – TAB News.