Hippodrome de Wallonie, Belgium 4 December 2023
Today, 4 December AHRCB run the last of the five EMIRATES BREEDERS PROGRAM RACES, a series supported by Emirates Breeders to stimulate racing and breeding of Race-horses in Belgium. This series goes on for several years now and has indeed induced a progress in the quality of the Belgian race-stock. In the past two years, thanks to H.E MR. Faisal Al Rahmani (UAE), we could also initiate a parallel series for the Juniors! In both series, there is also provided, apart from the purse, a premium for the Breeder of the best Belgian bred. It is still too early to observe a tremendous improvement of the level of Belgian-bred horses, but there is certainly a very positive tendency!
Today, against all odds and forecasts by the French “specialist”, who generally gave the two French-bred (but German owned and trained horses as winners), it was FARIDA P (Belgian-bred, owned and trained) that became an easy winner. TEX D.A. (equally Belgian –bred, owned and trained) finished a rather close third …. Proof of an encouraging evolution indeed!!
All horses had a good start, and it was rapidly ILLIKEAU (FR) and AINHOA PETRUCIO (FR), both in hands of the “Weissmeier dynasty” (DE) that took the lead, followed by NIL ADAMIS (CH) bred, owned, and trained by the Swiss Urs and Franzi Aeschbacher, now in France. When passing in front of the grand stand, these top three were followed by FARIDA P (AL MOURTAJEZ ex HANIA D.A.) and YASHAR D.A.. The lot remained in these positions except that Yashar D.A. was replaced by his stable-mate TEX D.A. who from there on kept close to Ilikeau and Nil Adamis, still in the lead. Entering the last straight, FARIDA P, was still in 4th position, when jockey SANTANGELO Concetto asked her to change gear and they passed by Nil Adamis and Ainhoa Petrucio. Illikeau tried to catch up with FARIDA P, but could not do better than finishing in second place with several lengths behind FARIDA P. This 4year old filly is bred, owned and trained by the Belgian Peter DECKERS, helped by assistant-trainer Anne ENGELS). TEX D.A. (also full Belgian) managed to overtake Nil Adamis towards the end of the race and finished a close third behind Illikeau (FR)….
Congratulations for FARIDA P, who already proved her quality on several occasions … and will for sure be one of the respected contenders of our Belgian Championship on 11th of December… probably again with jockey SANTANGELO Concetto!
