Heritage field and Met noms are skimpy, but quality is a silver lining

The lack of a full field for the WSB Grand Heritage at the Vaal on Saturday and a diet-size list of first entries for the Sun Met in January drove home the point that the game is battling.

With the R1 million Grade 1 Met, the silver lining is the 25 nominations containing most of the best horses in the country – so Cape Town’s historic, prestigious race will not lack quality. One top-rank horse missing is Joe Soma-trained Got The Greenlight, who struggled in the last Cape season.

Trainer Paul Peter has entered Horse of the Year Summer Pudding, while Justine Snaith’s five-strong challenge is headed by his two Durban July heroes, Do It Again and Belgarion.

Eric Sands has put in South Africa’s top-rated horse Rainbow Bridge, alongside that one’s star half-brother Golden Ducat. Regular Cape raider Mike de Kock has indicated a desire to ship his brilliant three-year-old Malmoos from Joburg, in a box with stalwart filly Queen Supreme.

Other Highveld trainers ready to brave the excursion south are current national champion Sean Tarry, who has entered game performer Cirillo, and Paul Matchett, whose surprise Summer Cup runner-up Running Brave gets a ticket.

Most of the rest of the entries are supplied by leading Cape Town conditioners Dean Kannemeyer, Brett Crawford, Candice Bass-Robinson and Vaughan Marshall – with four, three, two and two horses respectively.

The WSB Grand Heritage was introduced a few years ago as a race with an unusually big field of 28 runners, over an unusual distance of 1475m (to draw sprinters and milers) and a handicap match to stimulate a betting surge – similar to the Grand National, the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch in the UK.

With 2020’s swingeing stakes cuts, the Heritage R150,000 prize money is a fraction of what it was and the lure is no longer there for connections. Only 17 horses stood their ground for Saturday’s iteration, negating the primary purpose a tad.

Still, as with the Met entries, there is enough meat on the bone to make the event interesting for punters.

De Kock candidate Oscar Wilde, a R4.5 million yearling purchase and two-time winner from six, catches the eye. The four-year-old son of Dynasty appears to be maturing nicely and is a 7-2 ante-post favourite.

To give the Vaal fixture extra vim, TAB has put up a R1-million Pick 6 carryover and is predicting a final pool of R5 million. That might be overly optimistic, given how last week’s Summer Cup day Pick 6 pool fell several millions short of expectations, but there will be a temptingly fat target for the betting public to aim at.

First entries for the R1 million Grade 1 Sun Met, 2000m, Kenilworth, 30 January 2021:

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