King Kevin looked to follow up a taking win at Chelmsford when he tackled the extended one mile one furlong handicap at Wolverhampton late on Saturday night. The son of Holy Roman Emperor has started to get his act together lately and had placed on his two starts before his breakthrough win. He was a fraction slowly away out of the stalls but having given away five lengths at the start at Chelmsford, he was much faster out the gates at the Midlands venue. He settled well towards the rear of the field on the rail and travelled well throughout the contest. As the pace quickened off the home bend our gelding started to make progress and he hit the front up the inside rail entering the final furlong. Windsorlot made a challenge in the middle of the track but King Kevin was always doing enough and won by a neck at the line.
Ultimately this was a cosy success from King Kevin and given the handicapper cannot be too hard on him, he should remain competitive in the future after being reassessed. He is likely to get a new mark in the high fifties which will mean he has to move up a grade or two when he is next seen. He seems to be best when running through horses and whilst the pace was sedate in the early stages, he was still able to show a good turn of foot to pick the leaders up.
This was a fiftieth winner of the campaign for us and it is a nice milestone to reach before the end of the year. King Kevin is one of the characters of the yard, often seen sticking his tongue out and it is great to see him display some of the ability he shows us at home on the racecourse. Well done to everyone at La Grange for your continued hard work and with some promising horses to look forward to next year we hope we can build on this in 2018.