The perfect start to July Day winning on Silver Class

I left the UK last Tuesday evening amid heavy rain and caught the night flight to Johannesburg to pre­pare for the Vodacom Dur­ban July, which is without ques­tion the greatest race and day on the South African calendar of events, and won by so many great horses over the years.

It was such a pleasure to hop onto the short one hour flight to Durban, making a pleasant change from the two to three hour journeys that are part and parcel of a jockey’s daily routine in the UK.

I was invited to appear as a guest on one of the panels to dis­cuss the Durban July. It was a case of standing room only and a great atmosphere accompanied the panel’s assessment of each of the July runners under the question­ing of MC Deez Dayanand. Garth Puller made up the panel with Alyson Wright, who replaced the hapless Muzi Yeni. I love a good curry – so I had their famous In­dian traditional Bunny Chow and can’t help but give it a 10/10.

On the eve of the July it was great enjoying leisure time in Um­hlanga and took a nice long walk on the beach before I settled down to study the form for my rides at Greyville.

I have certainly missed having Computaform during my stint in the UK. Computaform is a fantas­tic publication and gives the read­er a concise analysis of how each of the runners in a race likes to run – whether they are front run­ners, horses that need to be handy or fast finishers.

By comparison in the UK you have to spend a lot of time paging up and down the national horse racing daily, the Racing Post, which takes a lot more time and patience, and can leave you with­out a predicted outcome.

On July Day all the guys in the jockey room were in excellent spirits and looking forward to the excitement and long day ahead.

I have found the jockey rooms much the same in the UK as in South Africa. But one difference is that we have the apprentices busily moving around helping with our kit while in the UK, pro­fessional valets operate at every racecourse with each one tak­ing care of around 18 jockeys’ kit. They are super-efficient and take the “mickey” out of me as I am very particular with my kit and everything must be perfect.

Before leaving London I picked up two suspensions for the crop which I am serving at time of writ­ing.

On the first occasion I used my crop two more times above the allowed limit, which is seven strikes. The other happened on my winning ride Jersey Breeze when I used the crop consecu­tively without giving my mount time to respond, even though I only used the crop six of the seven strikes allowed. That resulted in a suspension of four days in total. But I have found the racing offi­cials to be fair and consistent as well as being firm and efficient in a friendly atmosphere.

The bottom line is that a jockey can survive if he has faltered and all of us do at times. However, at Greyville on July Day I picked up an AOG for a 10-day ban or an inquiry for interference – which equates to a third of a month’s earnings!

Saturday started in the per­fect way, however, when I won the opening race on Silver Class whose owner Laurence Wernars was delighted. The same con­nections made it a double when Crowd Pleaser blew apart his ri­vals in Race 3, taking best advan­tage of his light weight.

She’s A Giver ran an absolute blinder in the Garden Province to finish second. When she quick­ened 350m out, I thought we might have the race in the bag, only for a flash of white to sail pass me in the ghostly shape of Bela-Bela. A great day for trainer Johan Janse van Vuuren racing team and all the connections.

In summing up the day I think the two ladies took the plaudits on July Day, Bela-Bela and the other being Candice Bass-Robinson, who became the first woman to train a July winner with Marin­aresco,.

It’s a heartfelt ‘well done’ to all the connections of the 2017 Voda­com Durban July winner.

With the first race before noon and the last close to 8pm this is a monster day for people and horses alike. I’m sure everyone finds the 12-race card extremely long.

Maybe the British have it right at their big festivals such as the Investec Derby and Oaks, Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood by having meetings between two and five days with six or seven races a day. It’s certainly food for thought!

In saying that, it was great to see L’Ormarins taking the initia­tive by staging the first Queen’s Plate two day racing festival this year, which will hopefully grow and set the trend in South African racing.