A day of Princes and Kings

TRAINER Dean Kannemeyer and Lady Christine Laidlaw’s racing manager Jehan Malherbe splashed out a Sale-topping price of R2.7 million at the Cape Premier Yearling Sale of 2013 for a filly called Real Princess and it paid the ultimate dividend on Saturday when Real Princess's son The Real Prince gave Kannemeyer his fourth Hollywoodbets Durban July victory, Lady Laidlaw her second and Craig Zackey his elusive first.

- DAVID THISELTON

Real Princess has provided Lady Laidlaw's small breeding operation, Khaya Stables, with a magnificent future as she has also produced the three-time Gr 1-winning Champion Sprinter Gimme A Prince and also Gr 3 winner Gimmie's Countess, both by Gimmethegreenlight and full siblings to The Real Prince.

The Hollywoodbets Durban July didn't go as planned last season for the Kannemeyer-Khaya Stables team as their SplashOut Cape Derby-winning colt Green With Envy was raised to 127 after winning the Gr 1 Daily News 2000, meaning he had to carry 56kg in the July, and as Craig Zackey revealed in the July winner's enclosure on Saturday, "Green With Envy did not have the best of preps after the Daily News, he got injured and it felt like I was carrying the world on his shoulders and the pressure just got to both of us."

Zackey

Zackey added, "The pressure is now well off!"

Kannemeyer and Malherbe also carried that bad memory with them and so when sitting down after The Real Prince's eye-catching fourth from off the pace in the Gr 2 IOS Drill Hall Stakes back on May 3, they decided to avoid any chance of more kilograms being added on to his July weight by skipping the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge.

It seemed a massive gamble, because he looked one of the main contenders for that prestigious weight for age race and he is not only a full-brother to a champion sprinter, but he had never gone further than 1600m before. Furthermore, his mother Real Princess won the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint for Kannemeyer and in her six career victories the furthest was over 1400m.