Gr1 Computaform Sprint – The flying machine Val de Ra

Val De Ra, scores 8th win from nine starts

Gone in less than sixty seconds.  56.65 seconds, to be precise.  That’s the story of the Computaform Sprint over the Turffontein 1000m on Saturday, where lightning quick filly Val De Ra simply proved to be too fast for a strong field as she made every yard of the running and never looked like losing.  Val De Ra was denied a shot at the track record with the going not completely dried out after copious recent rains in Gauteng, but that hardly mattered as she left some extremely good rivals toiling in her wake to record her first Graded race success, writes Matthew Lips.

Punters evidently had little time for Val De Ra, who was allowed to start as a 13/1 shot from an ante-post call of less than half those odds.  Needless to say, it was the hugely impressive Cape Town raider What A Winter who attracted the bulk of the support and he started as an even money favourite in a maximum field of 16 for this WFA dash.  Fellow three-year-olds Shea Shea and Magico were the closest to What A Winter in the market, going off at 33/10 and 6/1 respectively, with support at big prices for the likes of Moroccan and Winking Jack.

Val De Ra was drawn 1 and shot out of her gate like she’d been fired from a rifle.  She immediately opened up a lead of some three lengths, with Mr Mickey Mouse, Winking Jack and Exclaim’n’Exclude showing some early toe as What A Winter raced further back.  Shea Shea and Magico were also some way off the pace, but it would have required something with the speed of a cheetah to even try to keep up with Val De Ra.  All her rivals could do is hope that she would run herself into the ground, but that never happened.  What A Winter was running on stoutly in the closing stages, having wobbled slightly coming out of the stalls, but Val De Ra never looked like surrendering her advantage and kept on going under Alec Forbes to beat the favourite by 1.25 lengths.  Shea Shea was running on to finish the same distance further back in third, with Magico also making late headway to finish a neck behind Shea Shea in fourth.  Most of them were just never really in the race at all, though.

What A Winter didn’t do himself any favours by being a little awkward out of the gates, but he was simply beaten for speed by a lightning fast 1000m performer.  Mike Bass’ beaten favourite was far from disgraced, and will surely come back into his element when he reverts to 1200m during some of the big sprints of the KZN winter season.  It is as hard to believe that What A Winter is not the best horse in the country over 1200m as it is to believe that Val De Ra isn’t top of the class over 1000m, but while the KZN season offers exactly nothing by way of Graded races over the minimum distance it is not short of good 1200m contests, with the Gr 1 Golden Horse Casino Sprint at Scottsville in late May the obvious first target for What A Winter.

Val De Ra has always looked extremely good and came to the Computaform Sprint unbeaten from five starts over 1000m.  “I didn’t know she was this brilliant,” admitted the winning rider, who has quite possibly never travelled this fast on horseback in his life.  Val De Ra had won a Listed event for fillies at Clairwood in early April, when starting for the first time since the previous June.  She was extremely ill for some time, and according to her relieved and ecstatic trainer Dennis Drier, “she was in hospital for a month”, adding that, “we nearly lost her.”  That would have been a massive loss, but thankfully the four-year-old has suffered no lasting ill-effects from her brush with death.

Val De Ra became the second KZN-trained filly in as many years to win this race after the success of Dennis Bosch’s subsequently exported Noble Heir twelve months earlier, but the 2011 Computaform Sprint looked to be a good deal stronger than its 2010 equivalent.  Val De Ra has won up to 1300m, so is not necessarily limited to the minimum trip, and her next mission may well be the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint over 1200m at Scottsville on May 28^th, the race in which she suffered her only career defeat to date last term.

Four-year-old Val De Ra failed to reach her R300 000 reserve when offered at the 2008 National Yearling Sale and races in the colours of her breeders, Avontuur Estate.  She is a daughter of Avontuur’s resident sire Var, who is frankly not everybody’s cup of tea but who is unmistakably capable of getting high class sprinters who can train on – as Val De Ra so emphatically showed at the weekend.  She is the third foal, third winner, and second Stakes winner (after Listed-winning filly Mitra) produced from Elliodor mare Minelli, who won four races over 1200/1600m.  Val De Ra’s eight wins and one place from nine starts have earned stakes of R1 064 803.

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