Glen Hatt and Colonial Girl proudly wear the winner’s sash
Trainer Dean Kannemeyer saddles the Gold Cup favourite Hot Ticket and has enjoyed a terrific KZN Champions season this year. The man who took over from his legendary father Peter in 1999, saddled his first Gold Cup winner in 2000 with Gary Player’s mare Colonial Girl, who was ridden by Glen Hatt. Kannemeyer also won the race in 2012 with the Argentinian bred In Writing.
Reflecting back on Colonial Girl’s victory, it is fascinating reading an account of the race by the late Harwyn Witherspoon. Particularly his references to the field size of 20 (16 is the capacity on Saturday) and the age old debate about pace!
Nothing has changed and then when we bemoaned the 20 horse field, today we whinge about the fact that we only have 16 horses lining up.
He writes:
Run the race over and over again and the chances are, given the same set of circumstances, there’d have been a different result almost every time. Such was the rough and tumble of the 3200 metre NWJ Gold Cup at Greyville early August that the outcome could perhaps best be described as more of a lottery than a horse race.
And it’s not the first time it’s happened in this marathon event. Nor fields are cluttered with a bunch of ‘no-hopers’, some of which of which have no pretensions to getting the trip, unless of course the race is run at a crawl, as it so often is. It’s this lack of pace, as was the case again this year, that’s more often than not the chief cause of interference.
A glance at the Stipendiary Stewards’ report for the race, run 5 seconds outside the record, was something like a litany of never-ending interference and traffic problems.
“Legal Mission shifted out at the 2700m clipping the heels of Hautcar and stumbled. At the 700 metre mark Queen’s consul shifted in resulting in Legal Mission and Champion Chestnut becoming cramped and Sequoia becoming severely cramped and having to check. At the 300 metre mark Lady Of The Turf shifted out resulting in Sequoia having to check and Champion Chestnut and Legal Mission becoming cramped and having to ease. At the 250 metre mark Valley Dancer shifted out resulting in Young Rake becoming cramped.”
For some it was an expensive exercise with more than R4000 in nomination and acceptance fees.
Time waits for no man! Some familiar faces, including a younger John Freeman to the far left
Passengers
As it turned out on the day, more than just a few of the field of 20 might just as well have stayed at home in their stables – they either had little or no chance on past form, or whatever genuine chance they may have had was nullified by interference.
Who’s to blame? It is the club wanting a full field in the belief that it will be a better betting event? Is it the nature of the track? Is it the riders setting a muddled pace, unlike, for example, those in the United States with seemingly built-in stopwatches and aware at any given stage of a race of the gallop or lack of? Or is it that South African breeders don’t’ produce too many genuine stayers capable of getting a true-run test of stamina?
Whoever or whatever, 20 runners of the overall calibre of the field in a race of this nature at the Greyville circuit is simply not on. And to think that the race enjoyed Gr1 status.
Lure Of The Bucks
Maybe it was the R600 000 stake, for it certainly wasn’t the quality! By comparison, a week earlier and in more competitive and evenly matched events, both the Oaks and the Derby under the Gold Circle banner, were of Gr2 status.
What can be done about it? Not very much I shouldn’t think, but quality rather than quantity would be a worthwhile starting point. Perhaps also if there were more true staying races and buyers came to realise the value of same, breeders might be encouraged to produce more stamina-endowed horses instead of pandering to a speed orientated market.
But that’s maybe all for the future and no matter what transpired during the running of this 3 200 metre event at Greyville, the five-year-old mare Colonial Girl will go down in the record books as the winner of the 2000 Gr2 NWJ Gold Cup.
