This week everything reverts to normal with raceday gallops resuming at Kenilworth on Saturday and the weekly club gallops at Durbanville starting again this Thursday for horses based at Philippi, and the following Thursday for those stabled at Milnerton.
Michael Clower writes on www.goldcircle.co.za that trainers wanting to gallop at Kenilworth are limited by a quota system – they can do so each season up to a limit of only 6.5% of the average number of their runners in the previous one or two seasons – but there is no such restriction on gallops at Durbanville.
Durbanville
The latter were suspended for 12 months while the surface was being improved and relaid while for the last month there were also no Kenilworth gallops permitted in order to give the turf its customary spring scarifying treatment.
For the most part trainers have accepted the situation, reasoning it is for the long-term good, but Joey Ramsden has been critical of the no-gallops period, saying: “It has all been hugely disappointing and what they have done at Durbanville is make the course ride even faster than it did before.”
However others have expressed satisfaction at the elimination of the Durbanville ridge-and-furrow surface, which because of the risk of sore shins and leg damage, meant they were unwilling to risk their good horses.
Justin Snaith said: “No-one has run more horses than me at Durbanville since the course was reopened and not one of them has finished lame. Indeed they have all pulled up incredibly well.”
The jockeys, who put their lives as well as their livelihoods at risk on every raceday, have also enthused about the surface.
