Al Muthana, seen above after winning the L’Ormarins King’s Plate, will be defending his Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge crown at Hollywoodbets Greyville on June 10 (Candiese Lenferna).
The Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge entries are out and it is going to be a humdinger.
Charles Dickens will likely start favourite, despite being defeated by Al Muthana in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate. He is all class and will attract a number of people to the course just to clap eyes on him.
Gr 1 HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes winner Trip Of Fortune is among the entries too.
The Justin Snaith-trained Royal Aussie is a fascinating entry because his target for the season was a big sales race, the R7.5 million Gold Rush, which he won. He consequently avoided the big three-year-old events, but now gets a chance to show exactly how good he is.
The classy Shoemaker will be making a late bid to qualify for the Hollywoodbets Durban July. That is if he does line up just two weeks after running fifth in the Gr 1 Daily News 2000.
Gimme A Prince is an interesting entry too, because this race falls just a week after the Gr 1 Golden Horse Sprint, for which he is the favourite despite having to carry topweight.
Event-1 R1 750 000 1600m (Turf)
GOLD CHALLENGE (Grade 1)
GOLD CHALLENGE (Grade 1)
| 5 | Al Muthana (AUS) | Ricky Maingard | 132 | |
| 10 | Bingwa | J A Janse van Vuuren | 122 | |
| 4 | Charles Dickens | Candice Bass-Robinson | 132 | |
| 12 | Cosmic Highway | Dean Kannemeyer | 113 | |
| 1 | Cousin Casey | Glen Kotzen | 122 | |
| 13 | Do It Again | Justin Snaith | 124 | |
| 8 | Gimme A Prince | Dean Kannemeyer | 125 | |
| 2 | Rascallion | Vaughan Marshall | 122 | |
| 9 | Royal Aussie | Justin Snaith | 116 | |
| 6 | Russian Rock | Dean Kannemeyer | 108 | |
| 7 | Safe Passage | Mike de Kock | 124 | |
| 11 | Shoemaker | Mike de Kock | 114 | |
| 3 | Trip Of Fortune | Candice Bass-Robinson | 127 | |
| 14 | Zapatillas | Brett Crawford | 122 | |
| (14) | ||||
