The Joburg Spring-Summer feature season boasts two great months of action horseracing with four mega-meetings headlining the festival.
The talk on everyone’s lips is the inaugural running of the R750 000 The Grand Heritage over 1475m at the Vaal, which is just weeks away and is the first of the mega meetings. It is scheduled for Saturday 1 October at the Vaal.
While ‘only’ 28 can start in the feature, both the connections of the Johan Janse van Vuuren-trained Irish Pride and the Stuart Pettigrew-trained Kings Archer will be hoping to make the cut after their horses showed off their credentials for the big race recently.
Irish Pride, despite carrying top-weight of 60.5kg, finished strongly to win a 1400m handicap at the Vaal last Tuesday and in the process beat fellow entries in Move Like Jagger, Noah’s Ark, Cherokee Grey, Tokyo Drift, Gasoline and Counterstroke.
Earlier at the same meeting Kings Archer swept past the opposition to win a 1200m handicap by a commanding 3,50 lengths and among the defeated were Grand Heritage entries Master’s Spirit and Chepardo.
Others contenders to have won since the bumper first entries were announced are Man’s Inn, Noah’s Ark, Silver Class, Thrust, Trip To Paradise, Belenos, Miracle Bureau and National Key.
The final weights will be published on 20 September but up until then are being updated on a daily basis.
The long handicap, as the weights are currently structured, range from Night Trip on 69kg down to Over It on a postage stamp 38.5kg, and can be viewed in the ‘public’ section on www.sahorseracing.co.za
Supplementary entries close on Monday 19 September and the final field will be announced on Tellytrack on 21 September.
A feature of the day will also be a unique ‘human race’. This will see 40 Vaal-based grooms set off from the 1 600m mark in a dash for a share of the R20 000 prize money on offer.
The R1 million Peermont Emperors Palace Charity Mile follows a week later and will provide some serious fireworks on a seven-race feature bill at Turffontein on 5 November
The popular International Jockeys Challenge is down for Sunday 20 November and then the R2 million Gr1 Sansui Summer Cup rounds of the mega quartet of feature days, taking pride of place with 6 other feature races on Saturday 26 November.
