Its long-time sponsor might be gone,
but the Durban July shows no signs of running out of puff
Whipping Boy
Some things change and some stay the same. Chrissie Hynde could have been singing about the first Saturday in July, when tradition demands that all eyes turn to Greyville racecourse for South Africa’s most glamorous horse racing event, the Durban July.
The well-known cigarette maker’s name for so long attached to the race is gone, and for the first time that anyone can remember, the race has failed to attract a sponsor.
This may well please the anti-smoking lobby, but it begs the question: if a major event like the July can’t lure a backer on merit, what price that lesser races can?
Such details are unlikely to deter the public, though. The July remains a major date on the horse racing and social calendars of South Africa and it promises to be as spectacular as ever.
July Day has a reputation for stretching the imaginations of fashion designers to breaking point as the glitterati scramble to outdo each other in the look-at-me stakes, a crazy, entertaining eye-catching pot-pourri of elegance, daring and originality in all shapes, sizes and colours of the rainbow nation.
A parade of Harley Davidson motorbikes is just one of the sideshows planned to keep racegoers entertained.
And the four-legged animals come to the party too. The Gold Circle
organisers have put together a
12-race programme which kicks off at 11.15am and roars through to 7.30pm. It includes three grade one races, two grade two events and a listed race.
In the breaks between, hard-core punters can keep themselves occupied with 10 races from Turffontein in Johannesburg, which starts at 10.30am.
And while the missing sponsor is troubling to the industry, possibly a bigger blow to this year’s big race
itself is the absence of the winner in 1999 and last year, El Picha. The
Argentinian-bred gelding seemed to have every chance of an unprecedented July treble, with his partner of last year, Anton Marcus, flying from Hong Kong to take the ride. Sadly, however, he was injured in training and had to be withdrawn.
El Picha’s trainer, Geoff Woodruff, said the six-year-old was recovering well and ”will be back to fight
another day”.
The withdrawal also of rank outsider Badge of Honour has left the R1,25-million race with 16 competitors vying for the R625 000 first prize nine from Gauteng, four from the Western Cape and just three ”locals” from KwaZulu-Natal.
The Gauteng contingent includes champion trainer Woodruff’s other entry, Badger’s Drift, a three-year-old who has caught the imagination of punters and is a firm favourite at 5-2. His closest rival in the betting market is the only filly in the race, KwaZulu-Natal’s Hoeberg. She has won nine of her 10 races and is priced up at 11-2 by the bookmakers.
She would be the first three-year-old filly to win the July since 1957.
Trademark from the Cape is the third choice at 6-1. He is the mount of champion jockey elect Piere ”Striker” Strydom.
The David Ferraris-trained Classic Flag is the oldest remaining runner at the age of six and also the only previous winner of the race left in the field. He won as a three-year-old in 1998, recording the fastest time yet by any animal over the 2 200m.
Merit rating a handicap to
predicting a winner.