{"id":21992,"date":"2013-08-19T13:30:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-19T11:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/soft-falling-rain-suffers-first-defeat-of-racing-career\/"},"modified":"2013-08-19T13:30:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-19T11:30:47","slug":"soft-falling-rain-suffers-first-defeat-of-racing-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/soft-falling-rain-suffers-first-defeat-of-racing-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Soft Falling Rain suffers first defeat of racing career"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=13830\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13830\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-13830 \" alt=\"Paul Hanagan rides Soft Falling Rain at Newbury on Saturday. Photo: Alan Crowhurst \/ Getty Images\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/2dba5_AD20130817354404-NEWBURY_ENGLAN.jpg\" width=\"416\" height=\"277\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Hanagan rides Soft Falling Rain at Newbury on Saturday. Photo: Alan Crowhurst \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Soft Falling Rain suffered the first loss of his career when he came second to Princess Haya of Jordan\u2019s Gregorian in the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid\u2019s colt, who had seven wins in seven starts, had not raced since winning the Godolphin Mile at Meydan Racecourse on World Cup night, in March, and the long break showed as he beaten by a length and a half.<\/p>\n<p>Mike de Kock had suggested in Dubai that Soft Falling Rain might be a candidate for sprinting honours in Europe but after soft-tissue problems in his back it appears that he will be stepped up in distance for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s been beaten by a Group 1 horse,\u201d the eight-time South African champion trainer said. \u201cHe\u2019s been off the track for 140 days so I have to be chuffed with him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking at that, he wants a mile and I\u2019ll have to discuss plans with the owner.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/soft-falling-rain-is-class-act-in-betfred-hungerford-stakes\/\" target=\"_blank\">De Kock stated before the race that the seven furlongs at Newbury was just a building block for later in the season<\/a> and the former champion juvenile of South Africa is entered in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day at Ascot in October. \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenational.ae\" target=\"_blank\">The National<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more breaking Mike de Kock news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/mike-de-kock\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/de-kock-lashes-out-at-turkish-racing-authorities\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/2dba5_193237504_80_801.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/de-kock-lashes-out-at-turkish-racing-authorities\/\" target=\"_blank\">De Kock lashes out at Turkish racing authorities<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/st-nicholas-abbeys-racing-career-ends-after-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/2dba5_187442740_80_80.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/st-nicholas-abbeys-racing-career-ends-after-injury\/\" target=\"_blank\">St Nicholas Abbey\u2019s racing career ends after injury<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/eb99d_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Hanagan rides Soft Falling Rain at Newbury on Saturday. Photo: Alan Crowhurst \/ Getty Images Soft Falling Rain suffered the first loss of his career when he came second to Princess Haya of Jordan\u2019s Gregorian in the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes on Saturday. Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid\u2019s colt, who had seven wins in seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-21992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}