Do it Again will be going all out for a third Durban July win this year. Picture: Anesh Debiky/Gallo Images
The Durban July, sponsored this year by Hollywoodbets, traditionally sparks South Africa’s biggest betting splurge, and it will no different this Saturday – with hundreds of millions of rands changing hands within a few hours.
TAB has allocated two massive carryovers to the race meeting. The Pick 6 starts with R2 million in the pool and so does the Quartet on the Durban July. Each pool should total more than R10 million and taking a punt on the July Quartet will appeal to many.
There’s a maximum field and the race looks highly competitive, so there’s every chance that the Quartet will deliver a mega payout, calculated by dividing the number of winning bets into the total net pool.
To win the Quartet, one has to select the first four past the post in the correct order and in an 18-horse field this might sound like a tall order. But there are various ways to play the bet and the cost can be reduced by taking a percentage of the full bet. The basic Quartet bet is a straight line in which only one horse is selected for each of the first four placings.
Another way is to take one or two horses as floating bankers. The floating banker must finish in the top four and if your other choices fill the other placings, you collect.
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The bet favoured by many is a box Quartet. For example you choose five horses and as long as four of them fill the first four places in any order you win. The full cost of a five-horse Quartet box is R120 (120 possible combinations at R1 per combination), but you can play the bet for say R30 and a quarter or 25% of the payout if you win. Perhaps the best way to pick your horses in this year’s July is to look for consistent placegetters.
Justin Snaith and Mike de Kock train half the field between them and most of their runners have chances. De Kock-trained Safe Passage is 4-1 favourite and looks the horse to beat. He has run nine times for six wins and two places, so the consistency is there and he has proved he will stay the distance – a natural choice for a floating banker.
Others to consider are the first two past the post last year – Kommetdieding and Linebacker – but both carry more weight this time.
Snaith is out to land his sixth July winner and is expecting a massive performance from Pomp And Power. But beware stablemate Do It Again, who has run in the Durban July four times for two wins and two places.
Suggested Quartet: Double Float 2-Do It Again and 10-Safe Passage with 1-Aragosta, 3-Hoedspruit, 4-Linebacker, 6-Zapatillas, 8-Pomp And Power, 12-Sparkling Water and 13-Kommetdieding.
The cost is R504 but the bet can be played for say R50.40 or 10%.
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