The returning King Of Light put his rivals in the shade when he won the Listed Idyllic Prince Stakes over 1300m at Belmont, coming home in cruise control.
The Daniel Morton trained chestnut was resuming after a nine-and-a-half month break from race action, but that put very few punters off … and with good reason … as the lightly raced four-year-old came into the race as a winner of five out his six prior starts, with a full house of two wins from two starts when racing first-up.
King Of Light, who jumped as a strong $1.50 favourite, landed in the lead but Willie Pike, who was controlling things from the saddle, let the speed go around the favourite, choosing instead to take King Of Light back to fourth place in the early part, racing at a comfortable gallop a little under three lengths off the leader, who was the $3.60 second favourite Snowdome.
Pike then had King Of Light tracking up nicely into the race on the sweep to the home turn … a move which he made seemingly without any real effort … and the favourite had halved the deficit to Snowdome to two lengths by the time the field turned into the home straight.
Snowdome kicked on well enough early in the straight, but a mere flick of the wrists by Pike at the 300m mark had King Of Light picking up his tempo. One hundred metres later King Of Light moved alongside Snowdome … and then, with 150m left to run, King Of Light claimed the lead and an advantage that he was never in danger of losing over the concluding stages with the son of Earthlight going to the line with 1.56 lengths to spare over Snowdome, who had just lasted for second place ahead of the faster finishing $31 chance Ginger Baker. Those following the best horse racing betting sites saw the heavily-backed favourite justify his short quote in impressive fashion.
That’s six wins from seven starts now for King Of Light.
“It was a test for him,” said Pike. “I don’t think he has ever sat on the speed like that, so midway through the run I thought, ok buddy, let’s see how you like this … but he didn’t care.
“I got there too early, but it didn’t matter. He was too good for them.”
