Ken Daniels Horse-racing
This year’s Rothmans July seemed to have fallen flat when the horse racing fraternity’s VIP decided not to come to the party. But the event may still be saved by a surprise guest who slipped in the back door at the last minute.
Horse wonder Horse Chestnut was just threatening to capture the public imagination in the way that Sea Cottage and Colorado King had done when it was decided to send him in search of greener pastures abroad. The bookmakers heaved a sigh of relief when the Oppenheimers’ colt was taken out of the July, but their smiles may still be wiped off their faces by the appearance of Ess Five Beaches.
The Cape-based and New Zealand-bred colt hardly raised an eyebrow as he moved through the divisions, popping up at Greyville last month to fluently win the Lonsdale Stirrup over 2 400m.
Six months ago nobody had even heard of a horse by that name, let alone considered him running in the most prestigious horse race in the country. Now he’s been backed from 100 to one to eight to one and must be making a lot of bookmakers very nervous.
That the horse is a grey will send even more shivers down the spines of bookmakers old enough to remember a horse called Jamaican Rumba who was backed at long odds by a punter who had had a dream about it.
The story created a betting frenzy in which the horse was backed in to short odds and won, to the bookmakers’ chagrin.
Ess Five Beaches is a newcomer to racing and has won five of only seven starts, including his last four by very easy margins, and showed by beating some rugged stayers in the Lonsdale that he can mix it with the best of them. With a comfortable mass of 53kg and the likes of Horse Chestnut out of the race, he looks “the business”, as they say in racing parlance.
Earlier this year when the Fort Wood-bred Fort Defiance was beating everything else except Horse Chestnut, he looked the part as a possible July winner. But when his half-brother and stable mate departed from the scene and left him with an open stage, he fluffed his lines and was beaten on all three occasions, including the Daily News 2 000, which is always used as a good indicator of July prospects.
At 11 to two he is still fancied to win and the combination of trainer Mike de Kock and Weichong Mawing have had a dream season.
But their luck may just have run out and Fort Defiance may again be destined for a minor placing rather than the whole prize.
Top of the boards is the Ferraris-trained Classic Flag, who won this race last year and has not won a race since. However, he did run second in the J&B Met, which was as good as winning the race if you consider that he beat everything except Horse Chestnut who was running his own race, eight-and-a-half lengths clear.
Being ridden by South Africa’s best-ever jockey, Michael “Muis” Roberts, who won the race for the first time in his career in 1997, has also made him a popular choice. However, on weights there is not much between the other three in the first four on the card – Golden Hoard, Classic Flag and Keenland Gold.
The last time they met Fort Defiance, Golden Hoard ran second, and Keenland Gold and Classic Flag fourth with little over a length between them. If anything, Keenland Gold is the best off, with the other three now carrying 2,5kg less and Fort Defiance 1,5kg more.
Keenland Gold is a bit of a battler and may not be able to convert the weight advantage into a win, but he runs well for Peruvian jockey Guillermo Figuerora and is certainly an attractive prospect for a place.
Palace Shock and Shah’s Star ran in this race last year, finishing down the field, and haven’t done anything since to suggest they can cause an upset. Yankee Blue Dill is a game old trooper who will definitely be running on at the finish and ready to pounce if any of the fancied runners falter.
The two mares, Circle of Life and Faralmond, have excellent form in top company and are sure to give good accounts of themselves. Faralmond ran second last year and third in the Met, while Circle of Life is well suited to the Greyville 2 200m course, so both have strong place chances.
Flying Duel is another that ran in this race last year, but it’s no secret that trainer Tony Millard considers this horse an underachiever. Having recently been gelded, the horse may now be ready to show his true potential.
Rainbow Ken wallowed around in the lower divisions for the early part of his career and then recently acquired a liking for the number-one box, and proceeded to win his last five starts.
His chances against a field of this calibre are hard to assess, but as racing pundits will tell you, a horse can do no more than win, and if he’s won five, why can’t he win six? However, he may find that the winning box for the July is a slightly more difficult proposition. The balance of the field are rather ordinary contenders in a race of this stature and seem unlikely to trouble the more fancied runners.
Before the meteoric rise of Ess Five Beaches as a contender and the recent failures of Fort Defiance, this year’s race appeared doomed to be another contest between old rivals with little to choose between them.
However, the entry of the New Zealand-bred colt has recreated the classic confrontation between the tough old contenders and the new kid on the block. On this occasion, the kid may be just too quick