Choisaanada won all three legs of the Highveld Winter Series last season and is seen above completing it by beating Fire Attack in the Gr 3 4Racing Sea Cottage Stakes over 1800m (JC Photos)
The Choisaanada saga was prominent in conversations on July Gallops day and the theme that is emerging is that the criteria for selecting horses into the Hollywoodbets Durban July final field needs to be made a touch clearer.
Controversy erupted when the 121-rated Erico Verdonese-trained horse was left out of the final HDJ field of 18 and only made first reserve, despite having been higher rated and higher on the final July log than horses who were put in the field ahead of him.
The most controversial leapfrog over him was the one done by the 106-rated Regulation.
The pro-Choisaanada camp are pointing out his high merit rating of 121 and some hard-knocking recent form.
The pro-Regulation camp point out that he has only had one bad race, his last one, and some of his form gives him a real chance of winning the race.
Most acknowledged that Regulation had not enjoyed much luck in a number of recent starts, but most agreed that making an analysis of the effect of luck in a race should not be included in the decision making process.
So, is it the higher rated horse who deserves a place or is it the horse whose weight gives him or her more chance of winning the race according to the formlines?
It should be pointed out that the July field used to be decided simply on weights order, but this caused a furore in 1980 when the second favourite, the Mike Bass-trained Cracker Lily, was eliminated from the final field at the expense of horses who were simply higher in the weights, some of whom were well past their best.
The condition whereby the field can be chosen at the discretion of the powers that be came into being the following year.
But currently one big question is how important is the Hollywoodbets Durban July log?
The Choisaanada saga has shown that the logs are not chosen with the same finality about them that surrounds the final field selection process on the Monday before the final field announcement.
The log seems to be the centre of controversy quite often in the build up to the July, but devising the equivalent of “the road to the Kentucky Derby”, i.e. a system whereby winning certain races gives contenders a number of qualifying points, which then decide the final field, would not be feasible for a handicap race.
There has been a suggestion that an overseas set of experts should choose the final field for the reason that there would then be no influence exerted on panelists by “the noise” leading up to the final field selection process.
Disgruntlement in the couple of days after the final field announcement is part and parcel of the great race and happens in every year in which a contentious situation arises.
However, has a 121 rated horse ever been left out before?
Another question which arose was whether certain types of horses are preferred to others.
If the distance of the July is an in-between distance i.e. 2200m, why do stayers seem to be shunned more readily than horses who have run up to 1800m and no further?
Although most of the of the post-final field announcement furore has centred around Choisaanada, his connections were actually not the only ones who felt aggrieved as there was at least one other highly rated horse who was left out.
The controversy that surrounds this week usually fades in the final week of the build up to the Hollywodbets Durban July.
There is also more chance than ever before of the reserve runners getting into the final field due to the mandatory veterinarian inspection that has been introduced.
All horses in the final field plus the two reserves have to have this inspection within 72 of hours of the race and some are predicting Choisaanada, who looked to be in fine fettle for his official gallop, will be lining up for the big race on the fourth of July.
