The Summer Cup has a proud and colourful history dating back some 129 years.
Dancewiththedevil wins the Sansui Summer Cup under Gavin Lerena in 2011
Since being reintroduced under its present branding in 1999, trainers Mike de Kock and Geoff Woodruff have dominated the race with the former holding a 6-5 lead in the new millennium, going into Saturday.
While Mike de Kock is not represented in 2016, his overall dominance of nine winners is not under threat.
But Woodruff has a serious chance to draw level in the 21st century battle and he goes for his fourth consecutive Summer Cup on Saturday.
That will set up a memorable return match in 2017!
The first horseracing in Johannesburg took place in December 1886 and the inaugural Summer Cup was run the following year as the Johannesburg Handicap.
The race was won by outsider Haco, a five-year-old trained by a Mr Du Plessis and ridden by J Bundy.
From those inauspicious beginnings, the Summer Cup has become one of the ‘big four’ on the SA horseracing calendar, alongside the Sun Met, the Vodacom Durban July and the President’s Champions Challenge.
Many famous horses have won down the years and they include Pamphlet (1917), Lenin (1940), Cuff Link (1963), Caradoc (1966) and Home Guard (1970) – who once held the SA record when winning 11 races in a row.
The Jack Butler – trained Java pulled off a remarkable Summer Cup hat-trick from 1956 as a four-year-old before going on to claim the honours again the following two years.
Cape challenger Home Guard (Johnny McCreedy) wins the 1970 Johannesburg Summer Handicap from Acheval and Rack & Ruin Cape challenger Home Guard (Johnny McCreedy) wins the 1970 Johannesburg Summer Handicap from Acheval and Rack & Ruin
After King’s Guard’s victory in 1971, the name of the race was changed to accommodate a sponsor.
The great Elevation was to repeat Java’s exploits.
Trained by George Azzie, who went to R24 000 to buy him on behalf of famous international owner Charles Engelhard at the 1970 National Yearling Sale, Elevation landed his first victory in 1972, when the race was run as the Holiday Inns for the first time.
He went on to score again in 1973 before completing a fantastic hat-trick under a big weight in 1974.
Elevation – led in by trainer George Azzie
He was retired to stud soon afterwards and proved a great success as a sire. He won the South African Sires Championship in the 1984-85 season, one of only two SA-bred horses to do so in the 20th century.
As the years rolled by further changes to the name, conditions and date diminished the event’s glitter and it eventually became the Champion Stakes, run in April.
It was reinvented in 1999 and today it is known as ‘the People’s Race’.
Geoff Woodruff looks set to write his name into the history books on Saturday!
