Billy Jacobson is all smiles as he canters winner Lord Rose to the start of the first polytrack trial on Tuesday
Greyville Racecourse has enjoyed a long and colourful history in the 170 years since the first official meeting there in July 1844. From Royal visits to groundbreaking Sunday racemeetings and innovative floodlit action, a new chapter is set to be written when the first Polytrack meeting is held at the course on Wednesday afternoon.
A rather low key nine race meeting, headed by a modest MR 84 Handicap, marks the deceptively momentous occasion and hopefully signals another important step forward for racing in KZN. The course has certainly hosted some varying landmarks over the years.
Grand History
A memorable day in Greyville’s history was Saturday 22 March 1947 when King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their two princesses visited Greyville. The King’s Cup was run on that day for the first time and King George VI presented the trophy to the winning connections.
On 25 March 1995 Queen Elizabeth II, a princess when she had first set foot on the turf of Greyville, now visited as Queen. South Africa’s very first ever Sunday racemeeting was held at Greyville on 25 May 1995 when more than 8000 people visited the track.
Light Fantastic
In 1996, history was made once again when it became the first track in the country to install floodlights. And now it celebrates with a polytrack, some eight months after Fairview opened a similar facility in the Eastern Cape. Whatever the varying opinions about the surface, they call this progress and changing with the times.
Meydan and Keeneland may have moved on already and are going back to dirt but the real benefits of the new Greyville surface will be felt in the containment of lost meetings.
In The Dark
Punters will go in rather blind in this first meeting and the comments of the jockeys from Tuesday’s trials may be worth noting. The general consensus was that the track was a touch on the heavy side but that can be remedied with the necessary roller. Kevin Shea also suggested that the home straight was not ‘as short as it looked’, which could see some exciting off the pace finishes.
Difficult
So in a 1000m nine horse field with little recent form amongst most of the field and no polytrack collateral, where do we go? While turf ratings will be applied, initially, our highest rated runner is the handily weighted Royalsecuritypower who showed to good advantage at the trials on Tuesday evening.
The son of Rock Of Gibraltar injured his mouth when running unplaced last time, but won his maiden well and has plenty of natural speed.
The blinkers are fitted on Wednesday.
His stablemates, the six time winner Furious Dancer and the paper weighted Royal Roy are also not without chances. It is worth noting that they are both Vaal sand winners, so may have a bent for this surface.
Cape Speedster
The Cape challenger Bold Var is very fast and as a winner of two of his five official outings, must have a chance. He was bumped twice before fading out of it behind Eddie Sweat last time, but comes in fit.
Pat Lunn’s Way West gelding Dodge City has lost form of late but is a five time winner and as ood pace to capitalise on is 2 draw. Muis Roberts’ Tycoon Touch has his third run after a rest and showed up nicely when running on strongly behind Sun Bay at Scottsville last week.
The whole programme should make for a tough punting puzzle, but everyone is largely in the same boat and that in itself creates opportunities to strike it lucky.
Track Note:
Although Greyville’s synthetic track is configured to accommodate a maximum 12 runners, following the 4 trial races on Tuesday 3 June and in consultation with the jockeys, Gold Circle management has agreed to limit field sizes to 10 runners over distances from 1000m to 1600m and 11 runners for distances beyond 1600m for the time being.
Gold Circle’s Racing and Marketing Executive Graeme Hawkins stated “The jockeys participating in the trial races were most impressed with the surface. They indicated a preference for “firming up” the track and we expect to race on a clegg-hammer reading of somewhere between 85 and 95. But in discussion with the jockeys we agreed that during the initial phase-in period we would limit the field sizes and re-assess the situation after the first couple of race meetings.”
