Speed Merchant. De Var Hyt (Piere Strydom) gallops strongly to win. The third placed Goldstream is in the background (JC Photos)
The smart Var gelding De Var Hyt ran his five rivals off their feet to win the MR 104 Handicap run over 1000m at the Vaal on Tuesday afternoon. Louis Goosen’s charge is the epitome of the course and distance specialist and has registered all of his wins over the Vaal 1000m.
De Var Hyt is a very talented, albeit somewhat inconsistent 4yo gelding, but punters found him here as he was backed into 19 to 10 joint favourite with recent Listed Umngeni Handicap winner, Jade Bay, who faded right out to last.
The Vaal afternoon looked to have the makings of a favourite exotic bet day for punters, and De Var Hyt instilled some decency after Paul Matchett and Randall Simons rocked the opener with a 90 to 1 debut winner.
The speedy sextet were out of the stalls flying and Strydom rode a cracker of a confident and balanced ride to keep the Soru family owned bay running powerfully all the way to the line.
De Var Hyt ran on strongly to beat Mogok’s Desire by 0.25 lengths in a time of 56.88 secs.
The pacy Goldstream stayed on for third a further 1,50 lengths further back in third.
The Normandy Stud bred De Var Hyt has now won 5 of his 20 starts for 7 places.
He took his stake earnings to R324 758.
He is by the evergreen Var out of the one time winning Fine Edge mare, Sunny ‘n Fine.
He cost R80 000 on the Ready To Run sale of his year.
The cleverly named gelding (his poetically spelt name translates from afrikaans to english as truth) looks to have more wins left in him. Particularly when Strydom rides him.
