Battles with injuries have plagued the racing career of the Gary Subratie-trained bay colt K D Flyer (Silent Valor – Dixie Flyer) who, as a three-year-old, was racing for the first time on Saturday in a maiden special weight event.

There was much anxiety in the camp as K D Flyer, with Bebeto Harvey, took to the track on debut to face rivals over the five-furlong straight (1,000m) course.

“This race today (Saturday) was used as an opportunity to assess the progress of K D Flyer, who has been battling with an injured tendon for a while now,” Subratie informed.

K D Flyer wasn’t the best to leave the starting gates, but raced in close touch behind Lady Jaela (Osive Donegal), who led the 11-horse field at a merry clip. Passing the dummy rails, Lady Jaela, who was running from the outside draw moved more to the middle of the racetrack to meet with Milagro (Linton Steadman). At the same time, Harvey switched his mount to the outside and produced K D Flyer with a strong run, having yards to go for the win by a length. Milagro out battled Lady Jaela for second with Rage Of The Angels, the mount of Jemar Jackson, getting fourth. The winning time was 1:00.2, with splits of 23.0 and 46.2 seconds.

Subratie, admitting that he doesn’t know how far K D Flyer will progress, says he is hopeful that his charge goes on to realise his full potential, especially when racing in three-year-old company.

“I know that he ( K D Flyer) is a good horse for a long while now. He has a tendon problem and we have been nursing him in an attempt to get him to the races; and he came here today (Saturday) and he showed up, and he won.

“With the problems K D Flyer has I really don’t know how far he will go, but we are going to continue working with him and see how well he develops. Overall, it was a good win and I am very happy with his performance and the mere fact that he was able to run the way he did,” Subratie told the Complete Racing Guide.

K D Flyeris owned by We’re Family.