Positively smashing spectacle on Durban July Day

In the hullabaloo of the Hollywoodbets Durban July and its glitz and glamour cliches, some significant occurrence on the day got overlooked.

There’s more to the great race meeting than one race and the fancy duds. As the Ascot Gavotte lyrics have it: “What a smashing, positively dashing, spectacle on Durban July Day.”

For example, master trainer Mike de Kock landed his 140th career Grade 1 winner, courtesy of gutsy mare Humdinger in the Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes in a thrilling duel to the line with Happy Chance, trained by Brett Crawford – who an hour earlier landed the July itself with Oriental Charm.

Much of the credit for Humdinger’s humdinger was due to the legendary talent of Piere ‘Striker’ Strydom – at 58 years old and in his umpteenth return from retirement.

The man has an uncanny sense of race pace and that has seldom been seen to better effect than on Saturday, as he dictated terms, then let the mare gather her wits, then put pedal to the metal. Thereafter, Strydom announced his pension was on hold again.

Golden Horseshoe

Also worth noting was Sean Tarry’s 1-2 – with Cosmic Speed and Proceed – in the Grade 2 Golden Horseshoe and the trainer commenting that this duo are among a very promising crop of two-year-olds in his yard.

The juvenile Grade 2 female heat, the Golden Slipper, saw Barend Botes’s Quid Pro Quo stamp herself as South Africa’s leading filly of her generation.

Lucinda Woodruff, the Cape Town-based daughter of multiple champion trainer Geoff Woodruff, who’s now in Saudi Arabia, made her first raid on Greyville and came away a winner. Four-year-old Cafe Culture streaked away from a strong field in the 1200m Grade 2 Post Merchants and will now be a significant factor in big sprints around the country.

Botes, who recently moved to Hillcrest’s Summerveld training centre after decades at the Vaal, was one of a clutch of KwaZulu-Natal trainers to grab glory on the big day. The locals have had lean July days in recent times, but Botes, Dennis Bosch, Andre Nel’s satellite yard and Mike Miller all pitched up in the winner’s circle this time around.

In the July, the KZN gang took third, fourth and fifth places.

Local highlight

The East Coast’s highlight was arguably Frank Robinson’s 1-2 in the Grade 3 Gold Vase. The 3000m contest was fought out by his charges Madison Valley and Shoot The Rapids, both three-year-old colts and both sporting the silks of Sid Moodley.

Moodley, a relative newcomer to the ownership ranks, looks like he could be an important player in racing’s future.

The official handicappers of the National Horseracing Authority were not pleased with the Gold Vase result though, declaring: “Madison Valley has seen his merit rating increase to 94 from 88… Here it was the ever-consistent fourth-placed One Way Traffic who was used as the line horse, leaving him unchanged on a rating of 109.

“In assessing the race this way, Madison Valley actually runs to a significantly higher rating but had to be capped to a rating of 94 due to the specific race conditions that state that the winner will not incur an
adjustment of more than six points and the placed horses will not receive any upwards adjustment at all.

“Accordingly, the winner was capped to a rating of 94 and the runner-up, Shoot The Rapids, did not receive any increase to his rating despite producing a performance that is higher than his rating.”

Gold Cup

The handicappers continued: “Both Madison Valley and Shoot The Rapids have been entered in the upcoming Grade 3 Gold Cup, which is a compressed handicap, but are hugely under sufferance off their official ratings of 94 and 99 respectively, due to the fact that the weight spread for the Gold Cup is only 6kgs.

“This negates any benefit they received by the capping of the ratings in the Gold Vase and in fact only serves to mislead the betting public and possibly create controversy should there be a need for eliminations.”

There’s no pleasing some people – even on a day of great achievement and joy.