The Joe Pride-trained Kaapfever loves his home track at Warwick Farm and a strongly run mile and a half, and he had both to suit in the Listed Inglis Australia Day Cup (2400m).
The 7yo gelding had made four previous starts in black-type races, with a third in this race last year behind Skymax (GER) and Wolfe (JPN) his previous best finish.
Given a patient ride by Alysha Collett, Kaapfever came from last to defeat the 6yo Pierro gelding Parry Sound by a half-length with Mubariz (GB) (Dansili) a further four and a half lengths further back in third.
The New-bred son of the Zabeel stallion Sufficient advances his record to seven wins, eight seconds, and eight thirds from 59 starts with earnings of $484,450.
“I would have liked to seen him jump a little better, but Alysha rode him back and rode him well and she is such a strong rider, the stable Racing Manager Orla Pearl said.
“You could tell when Alysha started to ride him on he picked up. Coming into the straight if he could do it.
“It was a terrific result.”
Kaapfever is the only runner from the three foals produced from the winning Kaapstad mare Kaapdiva before her death.
Stakes winners have been few and far between in the family of late. However, Kaapdiva descends from the Chatsworth II mare Precarious, the dam of one of the top-class fillies in New Zealand in the 1970s, Prepak (Pakistan II).
Kaapfever becomes the third black-type winner for the stakes-winning Zabeel stallion Sufficient who stood for six seasons in New Zealand before being sold to China in 2017.
