Mukaynis Justifies Favouritism

Having arrived at Hambleton Lodge towards the back end of last year, Mukaynis has now won two out of his four races for Kevin and Owner Mubarak Al Naemi. Previously trained in France, the three year old colt arrived with no wins to his name but a bit of promise. Immediately Kevin sought to find a race over 6f for Mukaynis, believing he had shown too much speed over 1 mile, the distance of his previous few runs.

Mukaynis had gone very close last time out when flying home to finish a very close fourth at Lingfield. This run led the punters to make him favourite for the 5f contest at Wolverhampton. Up and coming apprentice Shane Gray took the ride an rode with bags of confidence. Again Mukaynis got behind early and through the first furlong there was only on rival behind him. The leaders went off very hard in front and so Shane decided to leave his mount alone and ride a race from the position he was in. The field blitzed through the first half of the race and was soon heading into the business end. Eventual runner up Give Us A Belle kicked early in the home bend and stole a 2 1/2 length lead on the field. Turning into the straight Mukaynis still had more in front than behind and needed to make up a lot of ground. Whilst nothing else could get into the race, Shane was hard at work to get Mukaynis to try and cut into the leaders gap. With only the final furlong left to run, the leader began to run on empty legs whilst Shane and Mukaynis were rattling down the stand side. Soon they were along side and despite hanging into the long time leader, swept past with relative ease. In the final 200 yards Mukaynis asserted to run out a 1 length winner.

This was a good performance in a strongly run contest, and it gave Mukaynis a second win whilst coming over to England. There could be a lot more to come from the three year old and he looks one that will definitely improve when reverting back to the turf.