Rachel Venniker pulls out draw three for her mount Without Question (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
A one week wait has turned into a two year wait for Rachel Venniker to become the first woman to ride in the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Durban July.
However, after her mount Without Question was announced among the top 18 horses at today’s Final Field and Draw ceremony she is now just eleven days away from realising a dream.
Two years ago she was also booked to ride a horse who made the final field, the Joe Soma-trained Red Saxon, but in the last race in a Monday meeting on the week of the July a freak accident saw her sidelined with concussion and she had to be booked off the big race.
Last year she was booked to ride the Erico Verdonese-trained Jimmy Don, but much to her disappointment he was made second reserve.
So the relief when Without Question made it into the final 18 today would have been significant.
She said today after drawing barrier position three, “ Beautiful draw, I’m so happy with draw three. That’s actually my favourite gate number, so I’m over the moon.”
No wonder she did a bow to the audience after pulling that number out herself at the draw ceremony!
Without Question is trained by Justin Snaith and is owned by Nick Jonsson, who is the owner of the company, Jonsson Workwear, which sponsors Rachel.
The United States four-year-old gelding was strongly fancied for last year’s July, but ran a most disappointing 11,65 length 16th.
However, he has got into this year’s race due to his third place finish in the Gr 1 wfa WSB Met.
The Met has actually been Without Question’s only place in six outings this season, but some of his runs have been preparation outings and he also had one interruption.
He was due to run in the Gr 1 wfa Premier’s Champions Challenge on the Highveld, but had to be scratched for foot soreness.
Jonathan Snaith said later Justin has got his feet “perfect” at Summerveld before his comeback run in the Gr 2 WSB 1900, where he finished an encouraging three length seventh considering he was carrying topweight.
However, next time out he disappointed in the Gr 3 Tabgold Derby over 2400m, finishing a 4,70 length seventh. He was caught in a one out and one back position without cover in the Derby, which was not ideal. However, after moving up well in the straight to hit the front and then finding no extra the question mark had to be raised about his stamina capacity, considering he also failed in the July last year.
Rachel replied to the stamina question, “I think he does get the trip and I know him very well now. He got the 2,000 in the Met, so I don’t think an extra furlong will make a difference.”
She said about the Derby run, “It wasn’t quite his run, but we’ll do what needs to be done and hope for an even better run this time. Hopefully he can reproduce his Met run.I work with him almost every day and have got to know him very, very wellsince I first partnered him in the Met. He’s doing well and we’ll try our best. I’m really looking forward to it, he is such a lovely horse.”
