Alistair Gordon is probably going to give his Investec Dingaans winner Monks Hood a short break before aiming him at the Grade 2 Betting World Gauteng Guineas on March 3 next year.

Monks Hood became the first KZN-trained horse since the Gavin van Zyl-trained The Apache in 2010 to win the Dingaans. However, The Apache was trained out of a Johannesburg satellite yard and historians would probably have to go back to the David Payne-trained Sealegs in 1987 to find the last horse before Monk’s Hood to successfully raid the Dingaans from KZN.

A study of thoroughbreds racing at altitude has never been done, because South Africa is the only country affected by it.

Trainers rely on anecdotal evidence to form their own theories and once those theories are established they tend to stick to them.

Monks Hood travelled up to Turffontein on Friday night and arrived on Saturday morning. This follows the popular theory, also used in sports like rugby, that it is best to arrive as close to the race as possible when raiding altitude from the coast. However, it should be pointed out Summerveld is already a third of the altitude of Johannesburg, so in theory it should be easier for a Summerveld-trained horse to raid than a Port Elizabeth or Cape Town horse. Highveld raiders can usually get away races over a mile and shorter too.

Gordon was not overly concerned when the meeting was postponed to Sunday for two reasons. Firstly, in his opinion, KZN raiders perform better on the Highveld in wet conditions than they do in hot, dry conditions. Secondly, he recalled a Germiston November Handicap meeting of many years ago, which was postponed for a whole week after the KZN raiders had arrived and the KZN horses had gone on to fill the first five places, thus throwing all of the altitude theories out of the window.

Gordon was unable to go into the Dingaans confident as the recent Selangor Cup had put the result of the Grade 1 Premier’s Champions Stake, run on Gold Cup day at Greyville, into question. Monk’s Hood had run a fine 0,65 length fourth in the latter race, especially considering he had jumped from the widest draw of all.

The Selangor result had Gordon worried. However, he was given renewed hope after talking to jockey Bernard Fayd’Herbe who told him Ancestry, runner up in the Premier’s Champion Stakes, was a much better horse than his five length eighth in the Selangor suggested.

Gordon was not too concerned by Monks Hood’s disappointing third in a 1200m polytrack preparation race two weeks before the Dingaans and pointed out it was the second time he had run below par on the poly. He probably just does not enjoy the surface. Gordon added, “A 1200m poly race at Greyville is a lot different to 1600m on turf at Turffontein.”

Monk’s Hood was taken for a walk from his Turfffontein stable on Saturday and again on Sunday morning.

Gordon was pleased with how the race panned out from the off and was full of praise for the reigning SA Champion Jockey Anthony Delpech.

“From a high draw at Turffontein it is better to give a horse a chance and to sit coming up the hill. Turning for home I could see Anthony still had plenty of horse underneath him. When he let him down he came through well. He had had enough by the line but Turffontein in the soft is one of the toughest miles in South Africa. It was a peach of a ride.”

The impressive part of Monks Hood’s win was that the cover he had coming up the hill disappeared when they passed the false rail and he had only daylight in front of him for the last 700m. With a better draw in the Gauteng Guineas, he could improve on this performance.

Gordon was grateful to owner Mary Slack of Wilgerbosdrift Stud for giving him an opportunity to train such a good quality thoroughbred.

Gordon has trained a lot of top horses in the past, including the great Scarlet Lady and others like Extra Cover and Brer Rabbit.

Another good horse he trained was ironically called Mauritzfontein, the name of the stud farm founded by Slack’s parents Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer. This horse was raced in the UK by the Oppenheimers and Gordon’s connections bought it from them and imported it to South Africa, where he won five races, including the 1985 Grade 1 Mainstay International over 1800m at Clairwood (today’s Champions Cup).

Gordon first trained horses for the Oppenheimer family after they had a split with Dennis Drier, but Monks Hood is the first black type winner he has had for them.

Expert bloodstock agent Jehan Malherbe found Monks Hood and Gordon was then asked for the go ahead.

“He was an outstanding yearling,” he recalled. “He was big and strong, very nice looking, and had a lot of scope and his sire Querari had been doing pretty well. The female line was not the strongest up front and he sold for that price (R375,000) because of what he looked like. The female line looks better now!”

Monks Hood is out of the Camden Park mare Amber Bouqet, who won three races from 1100m to 1400m and finished third in the Listed Lady’s Slipper Stakes over 1400m at Fairview.

Gordon was pleased for Monks Hood’s Eastern Cape-based breeders Arne and the late Ben Botha, especially as there is a full-brother to Monks Hood on the forthcoming National Yearling Sales in April next year.

Monks Hood has won two races with four places from six starts and stakes of R439 625. He also banked the BSA Added Value Stakes Bonus of R102 500.

The Dingaans has muddied the waters for analysts attempting to assess how good this three-year-old crop is and how good last year’s two-year-old Graded form was.

As Gordon said, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

By David Thiselton