Turf Talk Newsletter – 12 May, 2026

Grand Empire is only number 20 on the Hollywoodbets Durban July log, despite having won a race that used to be an automatic qualifier, the Gr 1 HKJC World Pool SA Classic (JC Photos)

The first Hollywoodbets Durban July log was published today and there were one or two debatable points.

The winners of the Gr 1 SA Classic and Gr 1 SA Derby (now a Gr 2) used to be  automatic qualifiers.

It was also said by some that the decision to do away with the automatic qualifiers would not make much difference because the horses that won those races would qualify anyway.

So it could be seen as a surprise that Gr 1 SA Classic winner Grand Empire is number 20 on the log.

Furthermore, SA Derby winner Curious Girl is on the outside of the log looking in, although the SA Derby is now a Gr 2.

The justification for their relatively lowly positions would be their merit ratings with Grand Empire’s 111 rating leaving him at 1,5kg under sufferance as things stand and Curious Girl’s 100 rating leaving her a whopping 7kg under sufferance.

The WSB 1900 has never been a race that gave automatic qualifying to the winner, but it was a race in which the winner was in the past given preferential consideration for the final field.

Last year’s WSB 1900 winner was placed 14th on the first log, despite his 111 merit rating being lower than every single other horse on the log and it put him 2kg under sufferance at the time under the conditions of last year’s race, which were of course different to the conditions this year.

It is therefore somewhat of a surprise to see this year’s WSB 1900 winner Isivivane in the outside looking in horses.

He is merit rated only 108, but under this year’s conditions he is only 1kg under sufferance as things stand.

Trust is also among the outside looking in horses, despite having won the Gr 2 Jackpot City Diingaans and finishing a head second in the Gr 1 SA Classic.

He is only rated 111, but his credentials would often be considered superior to the like of The Ultimate King, Choisaanada and Olivia’s Way.

The 117-rated The Ultimate King won the Gr 3 Victory Moon Stakes and was third in the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup, a handicap Gr 1, although he did also have places in two Gr 3s and a Gr 2.

Choisaanada has not won a stakes race this season, although he did win all three legs of the Winter Series last year and he was second in the recent Gr 2 TAB Colorado King Stakes. His 121 merit rating is in his favour.

Olivia’s Way has not won a race of any type this season, but has a 114 rating after a second in the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup and a third in the Gr 1 Premier’s Champions Challenge, plus two other Graded places.

See It Again is at he top of the log with last years’s July winner The Real Prince in second and last year’s runner up Eight On Eighteen in third.

The log is shown below:

Isivivane is led in on Saturday after winning the Gr 3 WSB 1900, a traditional Hollywoodbets Durban July pointer race (Chase Liebenberg Photography)

Isivivane has been raised four points to 108 for his win in the Gr 3 WSB 1900, while the second and third-place horses, Regulation and Trust, have both been raised one point apiece to 106 and 111 respectively.

Fourth-placed The Ultimate King was the line horse and remains on 117.

The Ultimate King faced Isivivane on half-a-kilogram terms better than he would have in a handicap and was beaten 0,85 lengths.

Regulation and Trust faced The Ultimate King on the same terms as they would have in a handicap and beat him by a quarter of a length and a neck respectively.

The only other change from the race was made to last year’s Hollywoodbets Durban July sixth-placed Native Ruler, who was dropped two points from 123 to 121.

He faced The Ultimate King on 1kg better terms than he would have in a handicap and he was beaten by him by 1,10 lengths.

In the other relevant race on Sunday, a conditions plate over 1600m won by Okavango with July entries Eight On Eighteen, Note To Self and Mocha Blend running behind him in that order, the merit ratings of the runners were all untouched.

In Johannesburg Jan Van Goyen’s merit rating of 118 remained untouched after his second placed finish in a Pinnacle event over 1800m, but the winner of that race Pressonregardless, who is not a July entry, was raised two points from 113 to 115, and the last-placed runner in that six-horse field, Wild Intent, was dropped one point from 110 to 109.

The favourite for the Hollywoodbets Durban July is still See It Again which is somewhat surprising considering the big weight of 62kg he will carry as things stand and he will thus be giving the bottom weights 10kg.

Isivivane will be one of the bottomweights on 52kg and in fact as things stand he will be 1kg under sufferance.

Trust will also carry 52kg and will actually be 1,5kg under sufferance as things stand, considering the 2kg weight for age allowance there is for three-year-olds running over 2200m at the beginning of July.

Considering he was a narrow runner up in the Gr 1 HKJC World Pool SA Classic over 1800m, it won’t be easy for See It Again to give 10kg to a horse of that calibre or to the SA Classic winner Grand Empire, who is also rated 111.

Eight On Eighteen is rated 129, so will get half-a-kilogram from See It Again.

An interesting comparison will be to compare the weight turnaround from last year of Eight On Eighteen and Native Ruler.

Eight On Eighteen carried 3kg more than Native Ruler last year and beat him by 3,70 lengths.

This year Eight On Eighteen will be giving Native Ruler only 4kg and considering he had a weight for age allowance of 2kg last year as a three-year-old, it means Eight On Eighteen is actually effectively 1kg better off than he was last year with Native Ruler. So considering Eight On Eighteen beat Native Ruler easily in last year’s race, the latter has very little chance of beating Eight On Eighten in this year’s big race.

On the other hand Native Ruler did beat Eight On Eighteen in this year’s WSB Met, but the latter had an interrupted preparation into that race.

Star Major impressed when winning the Gr 2 WSB Guineas and was raised to 118, the same mark as both Jan Van Goyen and Note To Self.

They will all be carrying 54kg as things stand which should be manageable.

Wish List will also have a nice galloping weight of 53,5kg and she only looks to be getting better. She could be the fifth filly to win the big race this millennium.

Greg Blank was an immensely popular and passionate member of the South African racing community and his passing over the weekend left many industry people shocked and saddened.

His good friend and often-times racing partner Larry Nestadt said, “He was a special person. He was an absolute gentleman. He never complained about anything, never said a bad word about anybody and was always full of the joys of life.”

Larry met Greg through his brother and friends JJ van der Linden and Gary Burg and others in the mid-1980s.

They had a couple of things in common.

Greg was a well-known whizzkid stockbroker and Larry was well established in the financial game as a founding member of Investec.

Their other common interest was horseracing and they later both became prolific members of the Tawny Syndicate and were often partners in the Tawny horses.

Larry’s career in racing ownership started with the founding of the Tawny Syndicate and Greg, who was in racing before joining the syndicate, became a member later on.

Another founding member of The Tawny Syndicate, Jeff Shill, said about Greg, “You don’t find people like him. He was a guy with no rank, no malice. People did terrible things to him and he would just say, ‘Well what can I do, I’ve got to move on.’ His fortitude in fighting his illness too. I saw him in March when his condition was bad and I said to him ‘Greg I’ve never seen a person who is so positive’. And he replied, ‘Well what is the alternative, you have got to fight.'”

The founding of the Tawny Syndicate is worth repeating.

Jeff was mad about racing, going every Saturday and sometimes on Wednesday too, and revealed, “I took Larry to the Dingaans once and he left straight after the main race because he said it was boring! But then we bought this horse called Tawny Sky together … it was the worst thing that ever happened to us!”

Trainer Roy Howe walked into a shop owned by Jeff’s family one day and Jeff Struck up a conversation with him about owning a horse. When Jeff later handed him an envelope with R5,000 in it to buy a horse Roy said he would need at least 20 grand to buy a decent horse. So Jeff visited the Jockey Club to inquire about racing syndicates and he then managed to persuade Larry and others to come in with him in order for Roy Howe to buy a horse or two at the National Yearling Sale.

Howe shrewdly identified Golden Thatch as a new sire who would produce precocious two-year-olds and the first of the syndicate’s runners was a Golden Thatch colt called Tawny Sky.

Tawny Sky duly won on debut over 800m in late 1984, a race in which two of the runners were strongly fancied.

Jeff recalls how excited everybody was including Larry and added, “We said this game is easy, let’s get into it.”

The Tawny Syndicate rapidly expanded, but at the same time it became an equine administrative business.

So owners could sign up their horses with the Tawny Syndicate and everything would be looked after for them, including colours renewals, reconciling veterinary bills and everything possible in racing and breeding that had to be taken care of from an administrative point of view, including managing stallions.

Greg first became involved with the Tawny Syndicate in 1986 just to have all of his horses and his ownership concerns administered by them.

He then asked to be partners or was invited to be a partner in many of the horses Tawny purchased and he became active in their breeding arm too.

Jeff recalled, “We all got on well with Greg, so we put him into quite a few horses.”

Larry said, “Greg was passionate about racing and breeding. He was a very smart guy.  He understood the game backwards. He understood breeding as well. He was obviously a bit of a punter too, which I wasn’t, so although we were partners in many horses we weren’t always on the same wavelength when dealing with horses!”

Jeff had fond memories of Greg’s punting too and said, “He loved punting. He was really clued up on studying form and people were always phoning him with information. Over and above what you can glean from form you also have to speak to people, and especially trainers, just to know what the yard expect.”

Although Greg loved a punt he was never a big punter.

Greg played a big part in the expansion of the Tawny Syndicate as he was very well connected.

The equine administrative side of the syndicate expanded to such an extent that Jeff was able to leave his job as an accountant and concentrate full time on this business. He was managing as many as 1500 horses at one stage.

Greg’s interest in racing was inspired by his father, despite the latter’s initial lack of success as an owner (he apparently did not have a winner in racing ownership for some ten years but then owned many winners, including a filly called Dancing Danzig in the early 1990s who won Gr 1s).

Greg owned many Gr 1 winners in his career.

Jeff listed most of them, “Greg bred Pointing North with us and we won the Cape Guineas with him (before being purchased by an overseas concern), he was a partner in Young Rake (who won the Champion Stakes (Champion Challenge) twice and was controversially denied a dead-heat win in the July), he was a partner in North By Northwest (SA Derby, Daily News 2000), Palace Line (SA Nursery, Premiers Champion Stakes and went on to win races in Singapore), he was a partner in Forward Filly (Allan Robertson, Thekwini Stakes) and Australian-bred Suntagonal (Premier’s Champion Stakes), he bred and owned Link Man with us (Gold Medallion), he was a partner in Vardy (Queen’s Plate) and he was a partner in Bull Valley (Tsogo Sun Sprint, Mercury Sprint)”

Larry said Greg had also had a share in Rakeen.

There were probably others, but Jeff did not have his database with him.

Greg’s biggest disappointment in racing was the judge’s decision in the 2000 July in which, after a seemingly interminable wait, he controversially gave the verdict to El Picha at the expense of Young Rake, who many believed had got up to dead-heat at least.

Greg said recently, “The only time Larry and I saw a photo finish of the race was nine months later at Newmarket. They called us up to the commentary room and we saw it there on a computer. That’s when we realised they had blown up the picture 400%. After 300% the pixels become distorted. But it was too late. It was the biggest travesty in racing ever.”

One of the most interesting horses Tawny owned was Toreador. They had bought a horse from Coolmore and Jeff Shill discovered this horse had had a colic operation that had not been disclosed, so he complained continuously and eventually Coolmore allowed them to go over and select another horse as a replacement. They were given a frosty reception and were allowed to choose one of the three horses displayed to them. Tawny chose Toreador and Jeff said Mike de Kock believed he could have been a champion had he not had an injury to his hind. He did win a few races and turned out to be a useful stallion. He was sire of both Link Man and Bull Valley, two of Greg’s Gr 1 winners.

Greg tapered his owning in his later days and raced mainly in the East Cape with Alan Greeff.

He and Larry still have a current horse together.

Greg’s funeral was due to be at Pinelands at 1 p.m. on Tuesday but was postponed until Wednesday due to the weather.

He was 67 years of age.

He is survived by his wife Dawn, son Lex, and daughter Ella.

Turf Talk send sincere condolences to the family, friends and racing connections of a fine gentleman.

Infinity Edge has an easier task than in his last two starts (Candiese Lenferna Photography)

Andrew Harrison (Race Coast)

A competitive card faces punters on the poly at Hollywoodbets Greyville today in spite of the relatively small fields.

The first leg of the Pick 6 is a competitive handicap but Mike Miller’s charge Infinity Edge has been taking on top class company of late. Although she makes her poly debut under a big weight she does get first timer blinkers and can run up to her rating. Victory In Orleans made a good start for her new stable when winning first time out. This trip should suit and she can go in again. Back At The George is in good form and goes well on the poly and her last win was over course and distance. Sohot Sowhat has consistent Cape form over shorter but the Lucinda Woodruff stable is in red-hot form.

Exotic bet bankers will not be easy to find on the day and it could pay to add something to the wallet in the first where Candice and Tammy Dawson saddle Power Of Pearls.

The filly makes her poly debut but comes off some solid Highveld form and with a 4kg claimer aboard she could prove difficult to beat in spite of taking on males. Of those Highveld Storm was a beaten favourite last run and has had two starts for his new stable. The switch to poly could be the answer. Donmagoo has improved in blinkers and should feature in this line-up. First timer Sierra Foxtrot comes from a strong Cape Town stable and is definitely one to watch in the market.

Prins Jaspar could prove the pick of the second after being a beaten favourite first up on the poly in his KZN debut. This trip should suit. Winter Circle was short in the betting when making his debut but finished well back. The betting and step up in trip could tell a story. Owner Of Creation is a long-time maiden but has been paying his way and should not be far off them again but he does have a wide gate.

Robbie Hill sends out one runner on the day in Tam’s Knight in the second leg of the Pick 6. The gelding is lightly raced and made steady improvement leading into his last win. He has won on the poly and can follow up. Grand Appeal has been consistent over the distance and has the best of the draw. He has run well on the poly and should be a threat. Spaane Rivier may just have needed his last run after a short break and does appear to be useful. He must rate a winning chance. Ibutho is always game over course and distance and tries for his 11^th win.

The fifth is another competitive handicap but although Wings Of Josephine has a wide gate she goes well on the poly and has taken on stronger in recent starts. Danger could be Blast From The Past. He made no show after winning on the poly on debut and was rested. Any market support will be telling. Intrepid is a solid galloper and the switch to the poly with blinkers removed can see him go close while Rainbow Reward is seldom far back and his last win came over course and distance. He has a 4kg claimer aboard that should help his cause.

In the sixth, Qhawekazi was a close-up second to the much improved De Vlugge last time out when jumping from a wide draw. She has a better gate here. December dawn may just have needed a pipe-opener when making her local debut as her Cape form was useful and a claiming apprentice will help her chances. Flying Fate won well on the poly last time out at only her second start. She is in modest company and can follow up. Call Me Jane may be the second string from the Andre Nel stable judged by jockey bookings but she does have the slightly better form than Tequila Sky and also a better draw.

United Nation has been a revelation on the poly and Darryl Moores charge has only been beaten once on the synthetic surface. He has won over the trip and although he faces a smart field he should be right there again. Vaughen Marshall has started his Champions Season raid in fine form and saddles the progressive Black Eagle that comes with excellent Cape form. He takes to the poly for the first time and will be a big runner if he does. Major Tommie has only twice been out of the money in 12 starts and his last win was over course and distance and cannot be left out of any calculations. Fortress Of Fire is smart on his day but is 3kg worse off with United Nation given their last encounter on the poly.

In the last of the day, Lions Eye took on much stronger last run and was not far back and is back to a competitive mark. Gorgeous Dude has his peak run after a break and loves this surface. With only 51kg to shoulder he will be a big runner. Definitely Yes has a tricky draw to negotiate but is holding form well and due a change of fortune while Kali Bwana has shown up well in two outings since her maiden win and has a money chance again.

Incredibolt has a fine chance in the Preakness (Picture: Kentucky Derby)

TheRacingBiz

After a stunning late finish by Golden Tempo in the Run for the Roses, only three Derby runners in Ocelli, Incredibolt, and Robusta will compete in this year’s Laurel Park version of the Preakness Stakes.

New shooters Chip Honcho and Iron Honor were aimed at this race by their top-flight connections and pose a big threat to the Derby returnees. Perhaps the biggest competition for them all is the Laurel-based Taj Mahal from the Brittany Russell barn who romped in the Tesio last time out.

Lacking a true standout but with plenty of talented runners who have not yet shown their best as three-year-olds, this Preakness should offer plenty of value and be an intriguing edition of the 151st running of the Triple Crown’s second jewel.

Who does our ‘capper like, and why?

Read on to find out. And how about you — who do you like?

Click here to read about all the runners

Silvery Breeze has been tipped to win the day’s feature (HKJC)

Happy Valley host Wednesday’s nine-race card from 11.40am where At The Races tipster Tim Carroll previews each race and gives his three best bets, live on Sky Sports Racing.

This Wednesday sees a competitive nine-race card from Happy Valley getting underway at 12H40 SA Time and the feature of the meeting is race 9, the Class 2 Paris Longchamp Handicap, over 1 mile, offering prize money of more than £310,000.

Click here for a comprehensive guide to the meeting