The Equus Awards had its inaugural year of a new electing system and there won’t be many gripes about the winners.
It is based on the Cartier Awards, but unlike the latter gives equal weighting to all three components, which are a points system, voting by an expert panel and a public vote.
The only flaw which might need tweaking is the points system for the Stayers award.
This is the only category which does not have a Grade 1 weight for age or Grade 1 level weights qualifying race, which are the events which separate the wheat from the chaff in the other divisions.
Age specific events are excluded from all distance categories, so the Grade 1 WSB SA Derby winner Aragosta and Grade 2 Wilgerbosdrift SA Oaks winner Rain In Holland were not nominees for the Stayers Award.
Despite there being no Grade 1 wfa or Grade 1 level weights races in this category, the weight a horse carries when earning points in the qualifying races in this category is not taken into account.
Therefore, Black Thorn ended on top of the points list on 21 despite clearly having been outperformed by both Nebraas and Shangani in their various clashes, not only in terms of finishing position but especially in terms of weight carried.
Sparkling Water finished second on the points table with 20, despite having had only one run in a points-scoring stayer’s event.
She earned 20 points for her win in the Grade 2 New Turf Carriers Western Cape Stayers, where she carried 56kg.
Yet Shangani earned only 8 points for winning the Grade 3 MWOS Gold Cup carrying 59kg against what overall looked to be a superior field?
The Gold Cup is only a Grade 3, but as it is still undoubtedly regarded as SA’s most prestigious staying event it can surely be given “Super Grade 3” status, just as some races are given “Super Grade 1 and Super Grade 2” status.
Thankfully this anomaly did not cause a major controversy this season.
After all, Sparkling Water ran in two staying races, easily winning a Pinnacle event over 2400m, albeit when well weighted, and winning the only Grade 2 staying race in the country.
Sparkling Water must have scored well in the two voting components of the award, considering there was not much in it on the points table, so she can still be called a deserving winner.
She certainly deserved to walk away with an Equus award considering her fantastic three length win in the Hollywoodbets Durban July, although the latter event does not count towards the Stayers category.
The public vote reportedly swayed the award her way.
She is in fact the second horse in recent times to win the Stayers Award based chiefly on the New Turf Carriers Western Cape Stayers result, the other one being Magnificent Seven in the 2018/2019 season.
However, the points system for this category should be looked at because it has the potential to cause controversy.
Had Shangani only run in one points scoring stayers race i.e. the Gold Cup in the same way as Sparkling Water had, he would have been 12 points behind her and likely out of the running. A Gold Cup winner should at least always be in the running. (He got an extra ten points for winning two Listed staying races which took him to within two points of her).
The Stayers Award in fact is often controversial, none more so than in the 2019/2020 season where it was decided to scrap it on the grounds of no candidates being good enough.
Ironically, Snapscan won the New Turf Western Cape Stayers carrying 55kg that year and she beat a strong field, although it was her only run in a staying event that season.
