As South Africa’s Shergar Cup hope Smanga Khumalo boarded his plane for the UK on Tuesday, 5 August, GBI Racing announced a few changes to the lineup.
There are still 4 teams including Great Britain & Ireland, Europe, The Girls and the Rest Of The World, but the team line-up now looks as follows:-
Great Britain & Ireland
Tom Queally (captain)
Richard Hughes
Jimmy Fortune replaces Ryan Moore
Europe
Frankie Dettori (captain)
Olivier Peslier replaces Andrea Atzeni
Dutch rider Adrie de Vries, who is based in Germany
Rest Of The World
Australian Craig Williams replaces Yutaka Take, who had to step down due to injury. Craig will now captain the ROW team
Yuichi Fukunaga represents Japan and has participated in the challenge once before back in 2006
Smanga Khumalo, who debuts in the competition and will be flying the flag for South Africa
Girls’ Team
Canadian star Emma-Jayne Wilson, who participated in the competition in 2006 and 2012, captains the Girls’ team
Hayley Turner makes her eighth appearance in the competition
German Steffi Hofer, daughter of Champion trainer Mario Hofer, makes her Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup debut
The Draw Procedure
The British Horseracing Authority has granted special permission to the Ascot Racecourse Executive to stage a ‘Draw’ on Thursday, August 7, at which jockeys from the four competing teams will be allocated to horses.
Allocation of Horses to Teams and Jockeys to Mounts
1. In all races, the horses selected to run will be those with the highest official BHA ratings.
2. Once the final fields are known on Thursday, August 7, the 10 runners in each race will be ranked from 1 to 10 by form experts/odds compilers from Winning Post, the Official Bookmaker to the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup. A complex formula has been created to ensure that each of the four teams – Great Britain & Ireland, Europe, the Rest of the World and The Girls – receives a
balanced spread of higher and lower ranked/priced horses and, further to that, that each of the three jockeys representing each team also gets a balanced spread of higher and lower ranked/priced horses for his/her five rides.
3. Once the ranking process has been completed, the four team names will go into a ballot. The order in which they are randomly drawn will determine which set of horses is allocated to each team.
4. A second ballot will then take place. The three jockeys representing each team will be drawn at random to determine an order (e.g. The Girls 1, The Girls 2 & The Girls 3) and will then be allocated to their rides according to the set formula.
5. The allocation of rides by this method will be final. Any trainer declaring a horse to run at the 48-hour declaration stage is deemed to have accepted these conditions.
6. All owners of participating horses agree that jockeys will wear the colours of the team which they represent as part of an agreement with the Racehorse Owners Association. Great Britain & Ireland will be wearing Green, Europe will be in Blue, the Rest Of The World Team will wear Yellow silks and the Girls’ team wear Pink.
How It Works
The challenge is run over six races.
Each race is limited to 10 runners with either two or three horses racing for each team (this will balance itself out over the course of the afternoon).
Points will be awarded to the first five horses to finish in each of the six Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup races as follows – winner: 15 points; second: 10 points; third: 7 points; fourth: 5 points; fifth: 3 points. If there is a non-runner which cannot be replaced by a reserve, 4 points will be awarded both to the team and jockey missing out on the ride.
If a dead-heat occurs in a race, the points for the two places are added together, divided by two and shared between the two jockeys/teams.
Subject to full fields, each jockey has five rides and the team with the highest total after the sixth race lifts the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup at the closing ceremony.
All six races are handicaps and all will be run with identical prize money – £40,000 per race.
There are three reserve runners per race. A reserve can be brought in up to 45 minutes before each race. Runners have to declare to run one hour before each race, at which point there is a 15-minute window in which to bring in a reserve if there is a non-runner.
If there is a tie for the Team or Silver Saddle competitions, there will be a countback on the number of winners and the team/jockey with the most winners will be adjudged the winner overall; if they are still level, then 2nd places will be counted, then if necessary 3rd places, then if necessary 4th places. If they are still level, there will be joint winners.
Silver Saddle
The jockey amassing the most individual points will take home an additional £3,000 in prize money, plus the “Silver Saddle” trophy. Previous winners include David Flores in 2001, Richard Hughes in 2002, Kieren Fallon in 2003, Weichong Marwing in 2004, Ryan Moore in 2006, Hugh Bowman in 2007, Gerald Mosse in 2008, Richard Hughes for a second time in 2009, Fran Berry in 2010, Paul Hanagan in 2011, Matthew Chadwick in 2012 and Gerald Mosse in 2013.
South Africa has been well represented at the competition with Douglas Whyte riding in 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2011, Anton Marcus in 2010 and Weichong Marwing, who won the Silver Saddle in 2004.
History
The Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup is being run for the 14th time at Ascot. The Shergar Cup first took place at Ascot in 2000 when it was staged as an owners’ competition. It became a jockeys’ competition in 2001 and has gone from strength to strength ever since, attracting bumper crowds year after year. It did not take place in 2005 when the racecourse was being redeveloped.
Entertainment
This year’s post-race festivities include a concert boasting some of Britain’s favourite music acts. Vernon Kay will host a line-up including Scouting For Girls, the Stars Of The Commitments, Bjorn Again, B*witched and, the one and only, Chesney Hawkes. A free fairground throughout the day and evening rounds off the fun.
