Sugar Mountain ridden by Aldo Domeyer beats Magic Verse in the Cape Mile at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth today. (Picture: Chase Liebenberg)
Among the thirty horses still standing their ground in the Hollywoodbets Durban July is the Justin Snaith-trained Magic Verse and he ran a good preparation today at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth over 1600m in the Non-Black Type Winter Mile, although as his name does not appear in the top 20 on the final log he will likely need scratchings to get into the big race.
In today’s race the four-year-old Vercingetorix gelding jumped from draw five and sat in about fifth place one wide with cover most the way.
The eventual winner, the 118-rated Candice Bass-Robinson-trained Silvano gelding Sugar Mountain, was providing him with cover.
Magic Verse burst through a gap towards the inside in the straight and pulled clear of the rest but could not match the strong finish of Sugar Mountain, who made his run outside of the leaders.
Magic Verse is rated 113 but ran with the same 61,5kg weight as Sugar Mountain, so it was a good performance to be beaten just half-a-length and showed he would not be out place in the Holywoodbets Durban July.
The race was watched with interest by many July build-up watchers, because Magic Verse represents the form of Garrix and Otto Luyken.
The latter pair finished first and second respectively in the Gr 3 Legal Eagle Stakes over 1800m, a head apart, and were a short-head apart when the form was reversed in the Listed Pocket Power Stakes over 1950m.
Magic Verse was a 1,70 length fourth in the Legal Eagle Stakes and a 1,80 length third in the Pocket Power.
Garrix, despite being a three-year-old, carrried level weights with the year older Otto Luyken in the Pocket Power and was only getting 1kg from the year older Magic Verse, so the question has been asked whether Garrix will be a late supplementary entry for the Hollywoodbets Durban July.
Garrrix, who is a gelding by Vercngetorix, was raised five points to 118 for his Pocket Power second and is thus easily up to the class of a July runner.
Will he be supplemented at the final supplementary stage on Tuesday 17 June?
The grapevine say the connections are unlikely to do it, because they believe the horse is a miler, but that is all just conjecture.
