A sprinting King Arthur
King Arthur displayed his growing versatility when winning the Lady Geeta Trophy feature with a strong late run to open his winning account for the season over six furlongs (1200m) on Saturday, May 14, 2022.
Trained by Jason DaCosta and ridden by Omar Walker, King Arthur by Natural Selection out of Geisha’s Gift ran down rivals and won handily by 4 ½ lengths in a three-year-old and upwards Open Allowance/Graded Stakes contest. The final time was 1:12.1.
King Arthur was surprisingly early in the race, settling in second place behind stablemate Lure of Lucy (Jordan Barrett) down the backstretch. However, he lost some ground when Father Patrick surrounded rivals to take the advantage from Lure of Lucy navigating the half-mile turn.
Duke (Robert Halledeen) hit the front full of running at the top of the straight, but Walker produced his mount on the inside rails in deep stretch and King Arthur revved up to power away from rivals. Second went to Duke, while Lure of Lucy held on to third place.
Owner Carlton Watson said that he was very pleased with his charge’s effort.
“It was an awesome performance by King Arthur. I mean, 1:12.1 is very good. He got a little setback earlier on in the year and we gave him the run last time out, straightened him out, he came back and worked an easy 1:09.0 and so we expected him to have a good race today.
“His two first races were short distance races because he has a lot of pace. Today, he had Father Patrick, who went in front and made the race a lot easier for him just to stay with rivals and come with his momentum up the straight,” Watson said.