Tipping is a thankless task… but here’s my tip for the Summer Cup

Our species, Homo Sapien, to which we humans belong, is complex. The lesser known subspecies, Homo Puntus, is perhaps even more convoluted.

A truism of human life is that one can’t make everybody happy all of the time. A truism of tipping is that you can’t make any punter happy any of the time.

I’ve been around long enough to know that tipping is a thankless task and that if you do, best you lower the expectations for success.

So my initial response to a number of racing fans who have beseeched me to tip more often in this column has been to repeat what I always tell punters when they recognise me either in the carpark at a racecourse or more likely in an ATM queue.

When they ask me “what horse is going to win?”, my standard reply is “if I knew that I wouldn’t be having to work here today”.

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On Tuesday an Irishman, a Nigerian and a Zimbabwean walked into a betting shop.

I know that sounds like a precursor to a pub-joke but Brendan, Ebuka and Michael are actually real people who frequent my local tote. All three are in relatively good form.

Whilst most of his countrymen were being stirred by rousing renditions of Ireland’s Call, Brendan shunned the shamrocks and placed a very nice bet on the Springboks to win the Rugby World Cup when they were still 5-1.

Likewise, Ebuka is no puerile patriot. As a rule he doesn’t put money on his national football team the Super Eagles, so by default that makes him a winner as he dodged Nigeria’s failure to beat both Zimbabwe and Lesotho in last weekend’s World Cup qualifiers.

Moving swiftly along before I say anything about Bafana Bafana losing to Rwanda; Michael, the last of the three, is always in form. He might not have brought much form-studying technique from north of the Limpopo, but what he lacks in that department he more than makes up for with his uncanny Ndebele intuition.

On Tuesday all three wanted weekend winners.

I put forward the “I still need to work” defence and lowered their expectation further by pointing out that I am about as far removed from being a professional punter as Yin is to Yang.

Furthermore with the form they’re in they should be tipping me, but nevertheless I promised them that I would study to my best ability, find some good double digit value, name the horses in my online column, and send them the article.

I’m really thrilled to be flying down to Cape Town on Sunday to present at the revamped Hollywoodbets Kenilworth racecourse.

Cape Racing is officially launching it’s Summer Festival of Racing and the Grade 2 Cape Punter’s Cup meeting offers Homo Puntas a competitive nine race programme on which to wager.

Having studied the card in depth I’ve had an each-way bet on Resonate in Race 6, The Bantry Bay Stakes.
I took the 12-1 win odds on Thursday morning and gobbled up the 2-1 on offer for a top four place. Resonate should go well. He runs for Aldo Domeyer (who has won on him four times), has won twice over track & trip and is back down to the handicap mark off which he last won a race (108).

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Saturday’s Betway Summer Cup makes quantum physics look easy-peasy.

Truth be told I’ve changed my mind so many times that what I currently fancy bares little resemblance to what I backed in the ante-post market.

Based on trainer Sean Tarry’s record of winning five Summer Cups, my early position was taken around his runners. Having backed Litigation, Bless My Stars and Cousin Casey at nice ante-post odds I won’t complain if any of his runners win or place.

However since the Computaform was published and I’ve had a chance to take a deeper dive into the form, it’s the runners from another trainer with an incredible record in the race that appear to be overpriced.

Mike de Kock holds the record of having trained nine winners of the Summer Cup – three of those victories were when the race was known as the Champion Stakes – and I have now finalised my each-way play as being Safe Passage.

The Drakenstein Stud owned and bred son of Silvano is having his third run after a rest. He’s drawn okay at nine and I love the booking of Louis Mxothwa.

Having dropped seven merit rating points he now looks extremely well treated if he can find his best form. As a three-year-old he won The Dingaans at this race meeting and then later in the season won The Daily News 2000 before finishing third in the Hollywoodbets Durban July behind stable companion Sparking Water.

Furthermore, Safe Passage ran second to Puerto Manzano in last year’s Summer Cup. He was beaten half a length and is 4.5kg better off on Saturday.

While I am hoping that a 16-1 win and a 5-2 first-four finish will give me safe passage from Turffontein on Saturday to Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Sunday, I was flabbergasted to see the huge each-way prices on the other Mike de Kock runners.

With all of them about 70-1 in the betting you can get as much as 11-1 a place about Aragosta, East Coast and Shoemaker and you can’t do to much damage at those odds.

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