Louis The King wins the Gr2 Betting World Gauteng Colts Guineas
A week is a long time in politics, they say. Well, it’s been an equally busy one for racing and it seems we’ve been dealt a series of rather hefty body blows, with one really not sure whether to laugh or cry from one minute to the next.
Derby, Oaks and Tellytrack
First came the Gold Circle announcement that going forward, the Oaks and Derby fields will be open to horses of all ages at Weight For Age terms. Following a lot of buzz on the bush telegraph, it was finally confirmed that KZN is facing an outbreak of African Horse Sickness.
Two days later the racing community was left reeling after an announcement that Multichoice plan to terminate their Tellytrack broadcast. In a press release dated 27 February, Multichoice put in black and white the privately held view of most Tellytrack viewers, implying that the channel has been underperforming.
It is hard not to wonder whether the recent turmoil with the bookmakers’ has anything to do with it, but whatever your take on the matter, for the time being it seems Tellytrack will be switched off on 26 March. No additional information has been forthcoming from Rivonia.
Jockey Protest
The 28 February meeting at Greyville descended into farce, when racing was abandoned after the first race following a jockey protest, which the operators speculate may have been premeditated and the NHA is called in to investigate. Track officials insist the track is fine, the jocks disagree. The rest of us are left to speculate.
The fact that the 7 March meeting had been moved to Clairwood two weeks ago and the cancellation of two forthcoming Greyville meetings leaves us to draw our own conclusions. Still, we shouldn’t complain. Where Clairwood will stage 3 meetings over the space of 6 days, it’s a long time between lunches in the Cape with no midweek meetings scheduled again until 26 March.
Considering the number of meetings we lost due to bad weather over the winter and the near perfect weather we’re currently enjoying down in the Cape, one has to wonder whether the programme can’t be adjusted to take the local weather patterns into consideration. There was happier news in PE as Daffodil Day bowed out on a winning high for the Shams.
The filly has been a soldier for the yard and having faced the familiar battle with the handicapper for some time, her connections wisely chose discretion over valor and retired her to the paddock. The diminutive filly is from the illustrious Lily family and I am sure she will prove an asset to Maine Chance.
Movement Restrictions
On the same day, the Department of Agriculture announced movement restrictions for horses wanting to travel into the Western Cape. I caught up with Camilla Weyer ([email protected] / 083 710 2408
083 710 2408) at the AHS Trust to get an update on the current situation. It seems that cases in KZN are coming in relatively quickly and for the moment it seems the outbreak is concentrated in the Curry’s Post / Howick / Dargle, although the authorities are expecting the situation to escalate.
Possibly more concerning (from a geographic point of view anyway) is the situation in Gauteng. Incidents seem to be very wide spread, with cases being reported in Parys, Pretoria East, Mpumalanga, Rustenburg and Limpopo.
The wide-ranging distribution of the virus coupled with a recent report from Prof Marietjie Venter of Pretoria University that the Kylami midge population in has escalated dramatically in recent weeks is cause for grave concern.
Camilla cautions that encephalosis also seems to be rife in the areas of Pretoria and Kyalami and horse owners should be vigilant as encephalosis will weaken a horse’s immune system, leaving it vulnerable to other infections. She has also stressed that the accurate reporting of cases in managing the situation is vital. Because encephalosis and AHS can present similarly, the two diseases are often confused and encephalosis is often wrongly reported as being AHS.
The Department of Agriculture only recognises cases that have been confirmed by vet or blood results, so affected parties are asked to please report as accurately as possible. Anyone who is unsure about where to report a case or submit a sample is asked to please contact her for advice.
For all the folks in the affected areas, one would ideally prefer that horses do not move around, but that’s obviously not practical for racing. To manage the risk for horses travelling to and from race meetings, the recommendations are to travel during daylight hours and to protect animals with insect repellents containing DEET (ie Tabard or Peaceful Sleep).
Any horses with compromised immunity should be monitored closely. We know that the current vaccination is less than ideal because of it being a live virus. Additionally, it is worth explaining that AHS is so dangerous because there are 9 strains.
Our two-pronged inoculation regime currently only covers 7 of the 9 strains, although serotypes 5 and 9 do get cross protection from the other types. Camilla explains that serotype 9 gets quite good cross protection, but because serotype 5 can cause a vaccine reaction (as seen in the 1990’s when batches of vaccine had to be withdrawn), this strain has been removed from the vaccine ‘bouquet’.
However, the real problem with the vaccine is that we are still requiring the horse’s immune system to respond to 7 different strains and there is no guarantee how many of the strains the body is able to respond to.
This is one of the reasons that we are encouraged to vaccinate annually, to give our horses the best possible chance of building immunity to as many of the strains as possible.
As far as the Cape is concerned, it is worth assuring everyone that no movement of horses is allowed into the Cape without prior sanction from the State Vet and movement certificates have to be obtained before travel. Interested parties can follow developments on the AHS Trust website (www.africanhorsesickness.co.za) and the Equine Research Centre Facebook page also posts regular helpful information.
Gauteng Guineas Day
On to Gauteng Guineas day, where the prawn festival was a success for the gastrophiles and despite the sticky underfoot conditions, the horse racing delivered too.
The Woodruff yard have quietly been going about the business of collecting silverware this season and Saturday proved a triumph with their colts and fillies double and stable jockey Robbie Fradd piloting both feature winners home.
Winning the prestigious first leg of the Triple Tiara is no mean feat, but Woodruff showed the firepower in his current arsenal by bringing home the first two past the post.
In the Colts’ Guineas, Louis The King proved a credit to The Alchemy Stud down in Robertson (as well as neighbouring Maine Chance Stud which stands his sire, Black Minnaloushe) and as a R55k purchase, he has certainly proved a rewarding purchase for his connections. In a meeting jam packed with feature races, a race that I particularly enjoyed was the Pinnacle Stakes won convincingly by the Tarry / van Niekerk runner, Cagiva.
The Vanree Stud-bred disposed of some rather smart types, under sufferance no less, to win by 2 lengths. Brad van der Riet is one of life’s more colourful characters and was thrilled to land a blow on behalf of our smaller breeders. He stands the stallions Seul Amour and Whitechapel out at his Wellington base and the farm enjoys a rather surprising strike rate.
Just last August, no less than 4 Vanree Stud bred (and owned!) runners passed the post first at Fairview– 2 by Whitechapel and 2 by Seul Amour. The stud’s most famous produce is arguably the impressive Heart Of A Lion, who ran Saturday’s Guineas winner Louis The King to 0.75 lengths in the Listed Sea Cottage Stakes, while giving him 2kgs. Really not bad for a stud currently standing 7 mares!
Another huge Saturday highlight was the triumph of Mike de Kock in Dubai, seeing a return to form for Mary Slack’s Kavanagh and a second win on the trot for Sanshaawes, both under driving rides from Christophe Soumillon.
Huge congrats to all the connections and well done to Mike and the team for flying the SA-flag so high. Hopefully this adds more power to the arms of those working so hard to effect changes in our export protocols.
And of course this week has kicked off with the Oscar Pistorius trial and our thoughts are with all those affected, but most particularly the Port Elizabeth community.
