A Met for the ages

However, a few known unknowns have the racing world a tad nervous – the Mother City’s famous south-easter wind might pick up speed during the afternoon, the pace of this race has been known to throw up mega-surprises and the possibility of delays in the preliminaries hold seeds of disaster for some contenders.

The 5-2 race favourite, Hawwaam, could be affected by the last of these irritations as he is notorious for getting bolshy on the big day – famously being scratched from the 2019 Durban July after becoming unruly and injuring himself in the starting machine.

The colt’s shock defeat in the Grade 1 LÓrmarins Queen’s Plate a few weeks ago has been ascribed to the lengthy delay to the start of that race, which had his trainer Mike de Kock muttering at how such things happened in major races but not maiden plates.

As rising star Vardy galloped to victory in the Queen’s Plate, there was widespread speculation that other fancied horses’ chances might have ebbed away as things were held up by multiple shoe and bridle adjustments – Horse of the Year Do It Again and reigning Met champ Rainbow Bridge failing to meet high expectations.

Both these horses had excuses in their previous outing, the Grade 2 Green Point Stakes, thanks to a muddled pace in the early stages of the race – due to jockeys’ paranoia about the dreaded south-easter headwind and desperate measures to find a travelling position where they’d be shielded from the breeze.

This force of nature is sometimes related to the phenomenon known as the “Cape Crawl”. Kenilworth seems ideally suited to riders who want to create mischief with the speed of a distance race, slowing things down to a dwardle before turning it into a sprint over the final 400m.

Many a Met bomb has landed thanks to these tactics.

So, while we study the card and imagine a monumental clash between at least six well-above-average horses, should any or all of the above disruptive factors come into play one of the “lesser” seven could blow away the most well-thought-out calculations.

What will Ryan Moore, one of the world’s top jockeys, flown in to partner Rainbow Bridge, make of all this? He will know that local know-how counts for a bit; but he’ll also know it’s possible to over-think tactics.

Having ridden all over the world as No 1 jockey to the legendary Aiden O’Brien stable, Moore has experienced many a changed environment – like last week when he finished runner-up in the Pegasus World Cup in the US, before jetting off to Hong Kong to register another second place, and then diverting to Saudi Arabia for a race before setting sights on the southern tip of Africa.

Booking Moore could be a masterstroke by Rainbow Bridge’s trainer Eric Sands. The great jockey won’t have had time to indulge the pesky imponderables and will ride the race as he finds it. His mount certainly knows his way around the course and – importantly – is having his third run after a rest – a universally acknowledged positive.

With eight wins from 10 starts, Hawwaam has been touted as South Africa’s next superstar. This will be his swansong in the country as De Kock ships him out to the UK and, possibly later, Australia, eyeing the far richer prizes on offer abroad.

There is no doubt this colt can shift it, but there remains a question mark over his temperament; he is also drawn a tad wide and, with riders tucking in every which-way to avoid the dreaded wind, he could find himself with ground to make up.

Dual Durban July winner Do It Again is a real puzzle. His trainer Justin Snaith admits his star went “quiet” in the boring off-season and has yet to find his spark this term. If he does so on Met day, the opposition will have some running to do.

The horse in unstoppable form this season has been Vardy, from the yard of up-and-coming Adam Marcus. This late-developing four-year-old left rivals in his dust in the Green Point and the Queen’s Plate and has momentum on his side.

One of these four horses should win the 2020 Sun Met – in an equitable world. But racing is seldom fair and rarely predictable, so the canny bettor will look a little further down the line-up of runners.

The names of ultra-consistent One World and Twist Of Fate must be in all bet combinations, while Head Honcho, a front-runner under the ministrations of wily Piere Strydom, should go in, too.

There is a whisper doing the rounds about Bunker Hunt, while a blinker strike for Eyes Wide Open should not be ignored.

All considered, everything points to it being a clash for the ages; a Met that will be long remembered by the purists.

For the money-minded, there’s a R8-million Quartet in the main race and a R18-million Pick 6 on the meeting.

SELECTIONS:

2 Rainbow Bridge, 3 Vardy, 1 Do It Again, 4 Hawwaam, 6 Twist Of Fate, 7 Head Honcho

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