Gimmethegreenlight colt Lucky Lad produced a late surge to win last year’s Golden Horse Sprint and give Sean Tarry his 19th Hollywoodbets Scottsville Gr 1 victory. (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
The Golden Horse Sprint is one of two races alongside the Woolavington 2000 which has lost its Gr 1 status and will now be a Gr 2.
However, it is going to provide punters with an attractive race, because it will be accompanied by a dramatic conditions change.
The change to the weight structure two years ago whereby the highest rated runner carried 60kg and the bottom weight carried 54kg meant the race had lost its appeal as the big betting handicap which it had always previously been.
Last year no fewer than 12 of the 16 runners were under sufferance.
The first bit of good news for those punters who did not enjoy that 6kg spread of weights is that the bottom weight will revert to 52kg.
Possibly even better news for them is that the benchmark for the race might be as low as 100 merit rating = 52kg.
That means if the highest rated sprinter in the country runs, the 134-rated former winner of the race Gimme A Prince, he would have to carry 67kg.
So the new conditions will not be liked by the connections of the best sprinters.
However, Justin Vermaak, who is in charge of the racing program in KZN, said, “A Gr 2 handicap is not a race for a wfa Gr 1 champion and should be weighted accordingly.”
Instead the low benchmark will lead to a true handicap and a possibly very long handicap too.
With the above mentioned benchmark there are unlikely to be many runners, if any at all, who will be under sufferance and some of the better class sprinters might be willing to take a chance carrying more than 60kg.
So those who enjoy top class long handicaps with big fields to bet on, it could well be a dream event.
It will be a particularly nice race for ante-post punters as the astute might be able to spot an up and coming sprinter who could come from off the radar into prominence at race time.
On that point, it has been disappointing to notice that some of the big bookmakers no longer appear to offer ante-post place betting on big races.
It is exciting to arrive on course armed with numerous ante-post bets all of which have a chance of bringing a return.
However, without ante-post place betting available only one of the ante-post horses is going to yield a return.
South African horseracing falls under the Asian Racing Federation and the Graded status of races is decided by the Asian Pattern Committee (APC).
If a race fails to meet the APC benchmarks for Gr 1 status on three consecutive runnings it become eligible for a downgrade.
The benchmark level is based on the performance ability of the first four finishers in the race.
However, this performance is based on the first four horses’ best performances of the whole season.
So if a horse ran to a certain performance level when finishing in the first four in the Golden Horse Sprint, but then ran to a higher performance level when running in, for example, the Gr 1 wfa Mercury Sprint, then it is the Mercury Sprint performance which counts towards rating the Golden Horse Sprint’s level.
The Golden Horse Sprint should have been downgraded before, but leeway was given by changing the bottom weight to 54kg, the aim of which was to prevent lower graded bottom weights from lowering the overall standard of the race by finishing in the first four.
However, this measure being taken in the last couple of years has also failed to bring about a raise in the overall performance of the race and hence the downgrade to Gr 2 status.
The first four finishers two years ago were Gimme A Prince, who had also won the Gr 1 Cape Flying Championship, Thunderstruck, Surjay and Bartholdi; Surjay, Thunderstruck and Gimme A Prince went on to finish second, third and fourth respectively behind the 130-rated Isivunguvungu in the Gr 1 wfa Mercury Sprint, so the Golden Horse must have gone close to making the ASP’s benchmark for a Gr 1 in that year.
However, last year with two horses under sufferance making the top four and the other two both carrying 54,5kg, it would likely have been well below the benchmark.
The Festival Of Speed meeting always used to be marketed as SA’s only jackpot of Gr 1 events, but this will no longer be the case.
Sean Tarry , who is the most successful Gr 1 trainer in Hollywoodbets Scottsville history with 19 Gr 1 victories, went close to doing the Festival Of Speed Grand Slam i.e. winning all four of the Gr 1s in one meeting, on two occasions.
He will no longer be able to do a Gr 1 grand slam, but the Festival Of Speed grand slam (which now consists of three Gr 1s and a Gr 2) should remain as a never before achieved feat to be aimed at.
