Gladiatorian wins KZN Horse Of The Year

THE most welcome aspect of the KZN Racing Awards held on Friday night in the Classic Room at Hollywoodbets Greyville was that only KZN horses were eligible i.e. horses whose home is a KZN yard - and it was thus the Stuart Ferrie-trained Gladiatorian who was named KZN Horse Of The Year and the stalwart bay walked away with two other awards too.

- DAVID THISELTON

The Highveld region's awards are called the Highveld Feature Season awards, so out of province horses can be awarded if they do well enough in the features, but the KZN Racing Awards have never had a qualifying clause like that.

The awards were thus wrought with confusion in the period of a few years when it was not just limited to KZN horses.

Some horses who happened to have run three times in the province were eligible in those days and there was also the use of words like "KZN domiciled", but that method of naming the award winners thankfully looks to have been scrapped.

The other change was there was only one winner for the age group awards and not a winner for each gender.

Ferrie

The Stuart Ferrie-trained Gladatorian's marvellous five-year-old season included winning the Gr 2 IOS Drill Hall Stakes over 1400m, finishing a narrow third in the Gr 1 wfa Gold Challenge over 1600m and he won the Gr 1 HKJC Champions Cup over 1800m.

The Erasmus Thoroughbreds CC-bred Vercingetorix gelding also finished second in the Gr 2 Allied Steelrode Onamission Charity Mile at Turffontein among other good performances.

He was named KZN Horse Of The Year, KZN Middle Distance Champion and KZN Champion Older Male.