Gr1 Gold Challenge: Red Hot Devil

Dancewiththedevil grabs gold

Dancewiththedevil confirmed her position as the best older filly in training when she unleashed a storming late run to polish off some high class rivals in the postponed Rising Sun Gold Challenge over 1600m at Clairwood on Monday.  The race had been scheduled for the previous Saturday, but heavy and unseasonal rain forced a 48 hour delay and the sting was still out of the ground by the time it finally did get under way.  Those conditions suit Dancetothedevil perfectly, and she took full advantage of the situation, writes Matthew Lips

Past Master had made a flying start to his KZN campaign and went off as the 5/2 favourite for this WFA contest after winning the Gr 2 Drill Hall Stakes over 1400m at Greyville in his only appearance since landing the J&B Met in January.  Dancewiththedevil had been below best when stretched to 2000m for the Gr 1 Champion Challenge in April, but now reverted to her optimum distance and was the 33/10 third favourite in a field of 12, with easy last-start Clairwood winner Bravura the 3/1 second choice of punters.  Big City Life, successful in this race last year, was a 15/2 chance and was the only other runner with a single figure starting price.

St John Gray - breeder, owner, trainer of triple Gr1 winner Dancewiththedevil

Blue Tiger took his time going into the stalls, but he wasted no time at all coming out again and the confirmed frontrunner once again adopted the freewheeling tactics which had so nearly won him this race in 2010.  He set a decent gallop ahead of Castlethorpe and Bravura, with Big City Life, Buy And Sell, and Past Master next in line.  Dancewiththedevil was as always held up in rear and must have been a good dozen lengths adrift as Blue Tiger brought them into the straight.

It was Blue Tiger’s stable companion Castlethorpe who was the first to make his move in the stretch, picking it up inside the last 300m with Bravura very much in touch and Buy And Sell not far away wide out.  Big City Life faded to nothing, and Past Master simply never got going at all when asked for an effort, but Bravura was all over Castlethorpe inside the final furlong and set sail for home.  Bravura looked the most probable winner 100m out, but Dancewiththedevil was now streaking home like a greyhound on a mission wider out.  The only filly in the line-up collared Bravura in the dying strides to win by a long head under Gavin Lerena, who was as ice cool as ever in the saddle.

These two pulled well ahead of the balance and it was three lengths further back to Bulsara, who was running on nicely and who edged Castlethorpe out of third place by a short head.  Buy And Sell and Blue Tiger were a short head and the same margin further behind, but Past Master went absolutely nowhere in the straight and was beaten 9.40 lengths into ninth place.  He is obviously much better than this and was the highest merit rated horse in the race, but winning the Vodacom Durban July over a distance he is not sure to stay always looked like a tall order and this display won’t have won him many new converts.  He clearly cannot be written off on one disappointing effort and it is worth remembering that he finished unplaced in the Queen’s Plate in his last start before he won the J & B Met, but irrespective of Monday’s performance he does have a lot to do in the July.

Big City Life eventually trailed in last, almost 16 lengths behind the winner, with Captain’s Wild only two places ahead of him.  Neither horse appeals as a serious July prospect on this kind of display, although horses with a history of tendon trouble seldom enjoy softer going and one might offer this as an excuse of sorts for Big City Life.  Dancewiththedevil had already been withdrawn from the July and may well go instead for the Gr 1 Garden Province Stakes against her own gender over 1600m on the same card.  The short Greyville run-in may not be ideal for her, but with Mother Russia retired and Ebony Flyer on the sidelines there really isn’t much that one can see beating her on WFA terms in that race.  That would be all the more the case should there again be unseasonal rain which leads to give in the ground on the big day.

Bravura will have earned himself new respect as a July prospect with this effort.  He met Dancewiththedevil –  arguably a specialist miler – on 1.5 kgs worse terms than in a handicap and came close to beating her.  He will race off the same mark in the July and could be quite handily weighted.  Against Joey Ramsden’s gelding is that he has never raced at Greyville, or on any other right-handed turn for that matter, but he showed again here that he is capable of racing within striking distance of the pace and that is always a good thing in the July.  Many pundits are staying away from the three-year-old colts as far as the July is concerned, and Bravura may well be the one to be with if you share that point of view.  He won the 2000m Cape Derby as a three-year-old, beating top class Noordhoek Flyer and finding more under pressure in the closing stages, so stamina hardly seems to be a sticking point.  He is clearly now as good as ever (if not even better) after a somewhat lacklustre Cape summer campaign earlier this season, and he will surely be cherry ripe come the first Saturday of next month.

Bulsara wouldn’t be without a squeak in the July if he can repeat what he showed here, where he ran pretty much to his rating in relation to Bravura, but he can blow a bit hot-and-cold and may just lack the killer punch in a race of the July’s stature.  Castlethorpe acquitted himself well and his 105 merit rating looks competitive in relation to the leading three-year-old males in the July, should he get a run.  Whether he will stay 2200m is another matter, although he may have been beaten more for finishing speed than anything else in the Gold Challenge.  He has enough stamina in the dam’s side of his pedigree to at least have a realistic chance of staying 2200m.  Lion In Winter got to within a neck of the third horse here and will benefit from a longer distance.  Most years there seems to be a long priced outsider somewhere in the July places, and this stable companion to Bravura might fit the bill this time around.

Yet the honours in the Gold Challenge belonged squarely to Dancewiththedevil, a filly who has just gone from strength to strength this year and won this race rated 113, having been beaten off a mark of 80 in two successive handicaps as recently as January.  She won a pair of Gr 1 races over 1600m at Turffontein by a combined 9.5 lengths during the Gauteng season, and while some might argue that she was lucky to encounter softer-than-usual going for Durban in June she was still able to make the best use of the conditions.  She is a seriously good filly, and one blessed with a rare turn of foot.  This is the second time that she has beaten male rivals on WFA terms at the highest level, and in its own way this was just as eye-catching as her 5.5 lengths romp in the Horse Chestnut Stakes in March.

Four-year-old Dancewithedevil is owned and trained by her breeder St John Gray.  She is a daughter of the otherwise frankly undistinguished stallion Modus Vivendi and is out of the Caesour mare Emperor’s Dance, who won three races over 1000m from only eight starts and who has produced a couple of other very ordinary winners.  Whatever it is that worked in the mix which produced Dancewiththedevil, it has sure worked like dynamite.  She has now won seven times from only a dozen appearances, for stakes of R1 995 425.

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