Will Pays (Imperial Stride) gained a first graded win of his career when scoring a well timed victory in Saturday’s Gr3 Spring Spree Stakes at Turffontein.
The six-year-old also made it a memorable race for the Mike/Adam Azzie yard who also sent out runner up Angel’s Power (Miesque’s Approval) to enjoy a 1-2 finish in the R250 000 feature. The luckless Angel’s Power, so unlucky at his previous outing, repeated his finish in the race of a year ago –with the son of Miesque’s Approval having also finished second in the 2016 Spring Spree Stakes.

Sporting Monarch (Rebel King) and Spring Steel (Querari) fought for the lead, with the latter eventually leading from Sporting Monarch, with the eventual winner off the early pace, and behind tote favourite Romi’s Boy (Querari) with Port Elizabeth raider Classify (Sail From Seattle) suffering a wide trip in the running of the 1200m contest.

Sporting Monarch continued to gallop strongly in front with 300m left to run, but was faced by a pair of strong challenges from the Azzie trained pair of Angel’s Power and Will Pays, with the latter running on strongly to register an ninth career success under a beautifully timed ride from Craig Zackey.

Angel’s Power, who must surely have a decent win in him, was game back in second, and finished a length off his stable mate. Bottom weight Sporting Monarch, who was receiving 8.5kgs from the winner, was another half length away in third place ahead of Classify, with the latter catching the eye back in fourth spot.

Bred by the Northfields Stud, Will Pays (who was conceding weight to all but Champagne Haze in Saturday’s contest) won the 2017 Spring Spree Stakes in a time of 71.85.

Owned by Brett Pepper, Mr du Toit, Mervin Green and Mr Jackson, Will Pays took his earnings to R832 900 with Saturday’s win.