Vaal racecourse will host the Grand Heritage on Saturday. Picture: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
The Vaal is not one of South Africa’s most loved racecourses; it’s out in the sticks, far from the big city, and rather rudimentary in terms of comforts. But it is a vital part of the racing metabolism in the country – staging lots of midweek meetings, with scores of races for horses of moderate ability, thus keeping owners, trainers and a myriad of other role players busy and churning revenue.
So it is that once a year the Free State venue beside the languid Vaal River gets a turn in the Saturday racing spotlight. In recent years this feature race meeting has been headlined by the Grand Heritage, a race designed to throw together an outsize field of horses, of varied achievement and rating, in a dash up the straight over the unusual distance of 1475m.
The intention is to give punters a “betting race” – like England’s Grand National – with an array of attractive odds and the chance to make the killing they all dream about.
That’s exactly what we will get in Saturday’s 2024 instalment of the Grand Heritage – as indicated by the odds being offered by race sponsor World Sports Betting this week.
Only two of the 21 likely runners are quoted in single figures. At 7-2 is the bang-in-form Captainofthegreen, trained by Fabian Habib and ridden by champion jockey Richard Fourie, while 13-2 can be had about ultra-consistent Pomodoro’s Jet from the James Crawford yard to be partnered by Craig Zackey.
But an upset seems at least as likely as a favourite winning – if that makes any sense at all.
Value hunters have a smorgasbord of tempting numbers spread out before them, with the 10-1 about The Africa House, the 16-1 of Slinky Mapimpi, the 25-1 of Fire And Flames and even the 55-1 of Zuzan sure to lure in a daredevil.
19 The Africa House, 18 Zuzan, 4 Fire N Flames, 11 Slinky Mapimpi, 14 Radicchio
7-2 Captainofthegreen
13-2 Pomodoro’s Jet
10-1 Guy Gibson, The Africa House
12-1 Master Christmas, Radicchio, Total Surrender
16-1 Silver Tudor, Slinky Mapimpi, Argo Alley
20-1 Savannah Storm, Richard The First
25-1 Fire N Flames, Brave Viking
40-1 and upwards the others
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