It’s a Royal Honour!

Tariro Charandura
ROYAL HONOuR, from the Bridget Stidolph yard, won the 1 800m OK Grand Challenge race at the Borrowdale Race Course yesterday.

The owners of the horse pocketed a cool $40 000. Ridden by Jerryd Penny, in his first race in Zimbabwe, Honour romped home ahead of Windigo and Supergood while Cool Solution came fourth. “It is amazing and I’m feeling over the moon,” said Penny soon after the race. “It’s my first race in Zimbabwe and I can’t say how grateful I am to win this race.”

The 25-year-old South African based jockey said he had prepared well for this race but he was not expecting to be on top of his game. “I had really trained well but the outcome was more than I expected. “Apart from the castle Tankard, the grand challenge race is the second biggest race in Zimbabwe and it’s an honor to be here,” he said.

Bridget Stidolph the trainer could not find the right words to express her joy. “I’m over the moon about winning this because winning this race means a lot to me. “For the previous years I had been working with Mathematician but his weight could not allow him to contest in this race. “The training with Royal was a bit intense since we only had little time after Mathematician gained a lot of weight within a short period of time” “So winning this means victory and more for us,” said Stidolph.

Royal Honour, owned by Simons Paul came second in the Castle Tankard which was held last month.

Daffi’s Call won last year’s OK Grand Challenge.