Furious was one of the great winners of the Gold Cup and was chased home in 1980 by Preciptack, who had been a narrow runner up in 1979 to The Malster. (Picture via meta on Notable South African Race Horses)
There was a time Durban had South Africa’s two most prestigious races, the Durban July and the Gold Cup.
Some would contest that statement but the Gold Cup, run over 3200m, had massive prestige and a build up and excitement on the day, including a tent town in the middle of the course, that was not far behind the July.
There are some great Gold Cup memories such as the imposing English mare Devon Air taking the lead at the Drill Hall and galloping the field into the ground, winning by a record margin of 4,50 lengths to follow her easy July win.
That was one of a record eight Gold Cup wins for Felix Coetzee. Another memorable Gold Cup win for Coetzee and trainer Terrance Millard was on Illustrador, who started his Durban Winter campaign by winning the Gr 3 Rupert Ellis Brown Plate over 1200m, then winning the Gr 1 SA Guineas, then winning the Gr 1 Durban July, then finishing a narrow third in the Gr 1 Mainstay International over 1800m to the horse he had beaten in the Guineas, Face North, and he ended surely one of the greatest Durban winter (Champions Season) campaigns in history by winning the Gold Cup over 3200m.
The Maltster is a South African legend chiefly due to the win he gave history’s probable most famous jockey Lester Piggott at Scottsville after losing at least 15 lengths at the start. But he also won the Gold Cup and it was said at the time that his pathalogical hatred of grey horses won it for him. The grey favourite Preciptack had ranged up to him in the straight and with ears pressed onto his neck he refused to let him past.
There was the interesting win win of Fauvist in 1978.
The previous year he had gained notoriety by delaying the start for ages due to a lost shoe, but when the race did eventually get under way it turned into a thriller and resulted in the only dead-heat in the race’s history between Don The Stripe and Pacer.
Furious was one of the great winners of the race and was trained by one of South Africa’s most admired lady trainers, Anne Upton, who inherited him as a maiden.
The Port Elizabeth horse Stateway was said to love swimming so much he would often break away from his groom on the beach and go for a swim. Legend has it that on his way to the Gold Cup his float stopped to give him a break on the long journey and he spotted a dam nearby and was off for a swim. It didn’t stop him winning the race.
The USA-bred Icona carried topweight in 1991 but that did not stop him breaking the course record by over two seconds.
One of my favourite raceourse memories didn’t materialise in a win, but I was struck by the intelligence of the horse I had backed in the Gold Cup of 2002, Badger’s Coast. I stood on the old numbers board platform as they thundered past for the first time and have a vivid memory of this horse near the back but with his head in the air, ears pricked and observing the field of runners in front of him as if planning his strategy. As they came into the straight a gap opened someway inside of where he was and in a flash he was heading for it and bursting through – it was surely impossible for a jockey to have guided him that quickly, it seemed to be a natural racing instinct. It was the old Mike de Kock-trained warrior’s last racecourse appearance and he set sail for home, but the welter burden of 58kg proved too much and he was 0,75 lengths shy of Highland Night at the line.
Highland Night became a Gold Cup celebrity when winning it the following year to become the first horse in just over 50 years to win it twice in succession and today he has a race named after him.
Another massive Gr 1 event over 3200m back in the 1980s was the Ok Gold Bowl ay Turffontein, promoted by one of South Africa’s most loved businessmen and philanthropists Gordon Hood. I am not sure if free cars were given away, but the OK Challenge still has that tradition in Zimbabwe today. However, it was a massive race and was won by such legends as Aquanaut, who was coming off a win in the Gold Cup.
But the point of this article is just to ask what has happened to the prestige of the staying races, with not one of them in the country above Gr 3 anymore?
One of the problems could be the lack of recognition for champion stayers.
One small way of amending this could be to exclude the SA Derby winner from the Equus Stayers Award, because really the horse who wins the SA Derby is almost always a classic horse rather than a true stayer.
Reserve the award for the true stayers and give them something to aim at and give breeders something to aim at too.
The strangest anomaly of all in worldwide racing should always be remembered too – Australia are obsessed with speed in their breeding and their racing program, yet there greatest race remains the Melbourne Cup run over two miles.
Racing fans have always loved staying races.
Perhaps it is that thrill of seeing them thunder past the stand for the first time in a bunch, a sight and sound nobody can ever get used to or bored of.
There is also much to be admired about the engine capacity of the stayer. Who can forget the great Yeats, the four-time Ascot Gold Cup winner, who used to have the field off the bit going through Swinley Bottom. Ask Kevin Shea about him as he was in one of those Gold Cups aboard the South African-bred son of Fort Wood Thundering Star, who had won the Durban Gold comfortably despite carrying 57kg in his first few days as a four-year-old, but whom was no match for Yeats and finished more than a dozen lengths back.
