Summer – The Heat Is On!

A total of 45 entries, including the 2018 winner Tilbury Fort have been received for the R2 million Gr1 Gauteng Summer Cup which will bring the curtain down on the 2019 Highveld Spring Season when the 2000m feature is run at Turffontein on Saturday 30 November.

The inaugural Summer Cup was run in 1887 as the Johannesburg Handicap. The race was won by outsider Haco, a five-year-old trained by Mr Du Plessis and ridden by J Bundy. Second, the 13-8 favourite, finished fourth.

El Picha wins the 1999 Summer Cup

Many famous horses have won down the years and they include Pamphlet (1917), Lenin (1940), Cuff Link (1963), Caradoc (1966) and Home Guard (1970).

One horse who really grabbed the public’s attention was Java, trained by Jack Butler. He pulled off a remarkable Summer Cup hat-trick from 1956 as a four-year-old before going on to claim the honours again the following two years.

Elevation was to repeat those exploits almost 20 years later. Trained by George Azzie, the chestnut landed his first victory in 1972, when the race was run as the Holiday Inns for the first time. He went on to score again in 1973 before completing a fantastic hat-trick under a big weight in 1974.

After Cape challenger King’s Guard’s victory in 1971, the name of the race was changed to accommodate a sponsor. As the years rolled by further changes to the name, conditions and date diminished the event’s glitter and it eventually became the Champion Stakes, run in April.

In 1999 Phumelela reintroduced the Summer Cup to the racing calendar in its traditional format and the event is now firmly established as one of the “Big 4” on the country’s racing calendar.

Trainer Mike de Kock has won the race a record nine times with six of those victories coming since the race’s reintroduction.

Champion Hawwaam (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)

One of the interesting 2019 entrants is Mike de Kock’s champion 3yo of last term Hawwaam, who has not been seen since a late withdrawal from the Vodacom Durban July. Being a handicap, it is not known whether De Kock will rather aim him at the Cape summer features like the Sun Met.

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Sean Tarry goes for a hat-trick of Summer Cup successes and has 11 entries.

His colleague Geoff Woodruff was the Summer Cup King, winning it four consecutive years from 2013 to 2016. The Guv has four entries.