Met 1-2 head for KZN clash

Last year’s Vodacom Durban July winner, Do It Again, now has Durban on his agenda for a second time following his 0,75-length defeat in the Sun Met but at the moment he looks unlikely to attempt to win South Africa’s most famous race for a second time.

Jono Snaith said: “We are dis-cussing it with the owners (Nic Jonsson, Bernard Kantor and Jack Mitchell) but he will most likely not run in the July because of the handicap.

He will instead go for the Rising Sun Gold Challenge and the Champions Cup.”

No horse has won the July in successive years since El Picha at the turn of the century and as things stand at the moment Do It Again could be expected to be given top weight. Since Pocket Power dead-heated with the Justin Snaith-trained Dancer’s Daughter in 2008 only Marinaresco (2017) has won with top weight.

The handicappers put Do It Again one point above his Met conqueror Rainbow Bridge.

Little went right for the favourite in the Met. He lost significant ground at the start and was shuffled back to second last.

Some 600m out he was last of all and, although he then made good progress, he hung badly right away from the whip and did so again when Richard Fourie changed his stick to his right hand.

There now appears to be a jinx on favourites in the Met – Do It Again was the seventh in a row to meet with defeat.

Jono Snaith said: “We thought he was unlucky but that’s racing and, in any case, I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the winner.”

Trainer Eric Sands said his Sun Met hero Rainbow Bridge will have a rest on the farm before heading for a campaign in KZN.

However, he did add the cautionary words “presuming he is still with us”.

Sands, asked on whether he had become confident as the race unfolded, replied: “I had been confident from Saturday morning, I’m not sure why, although I knew I had the right bloke on top. I only saw Do It Again running on down the inside when I watched the replay. I was only concerned about my own horse so only watched him and could see he was going to fetch the leader a long way out.”

The Ideal World gelding has a reputation for becoming hot in the preliminaries and also has a tendency to over race.However, Sands said: “He was be er behaved but was his normal self.

It didn’t matter though because the number went up in the frame.”

Sands concluded: “He had issues during the running of the Queen’s Plate but luckily we were able to get him over it.”Rainbow Bridge missed the last KZN season’s and instead ran in the first two legs of the Cape Winter series, both of which he won.

He was then rumoured to be running in the Vodacom Durban July but this was halted due to a pending sale overseas.

He failed the piroplasmosis test and the sale did not go through.

His career is following a similar route to the legendary Pocket Power’s, although the la er completed the Winter Series Triple Crown and then won both the L’Ormarin’s Queen’s Plate and the Met before heading for KZN for the first time.

An arch-rivalry has developed between Rainbow Bridge and Do It Again and the Grade 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge to be run at Greyville over 1600m on 8 June is shaping up to be a clash of the titans.

– Gold Circle

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