Johannesburg, 15 October 2024 – 4Racing in conjunction with the Handicappers have published the first log for the 2024 R6 million Gr1 Betway Summer Cup to be run at Turffontein on Saturday 30 November.

Second entries close at 11am on Tuesday 05 November, and final entries at 9am on Monday, 18 November 2024, after which weights will be announced. Declarations must be in by 11am on Wednesday, 20 November 2024 and barrier draws will be conducted at a Betway event on 20 November 2024. The final log will be published on Tuesday 05 November 2024.

Local Quartet pools with fractional betting on selected UK race meetings will return to the TabGold betting menu from this Thursday following a mixed reception from customers to the introduction of commingled Quartet pools on all UK and Irish race meetings last month.

Such commingled Quartet pools have been welcomed in some quarters, but many TabGold customers have complained that this has resulted in them being unable to play fractional Quartet bets on UK races.

TabGold have taken note of the complaints and from this Thursday 12 September customers can enjoy the best of both worlds. As before local Quartet pools with fractional betting will be offered on two UK meetings most days with commingled Quartet pools on all other UK and Irish meetings.

Whether an Irish or UK meeting has local or commingled pools will be displayed clearly on Tab sheet race cards in store and online.

Unfortunately for several reasons, including vast differences in exchange rates, it is not technically possible to offer fractional bets on pools commingled internationally.

The minimum unit for commingled bets is R1 (more in the case of countries like the USA) and this is itself a fractional bet in international tote pools.

As an example, the unit of a UK Tote Quartet is one Pound and a customer playing a R1-unit Quartet with TabGold on a UK race is buying about 1/24th of the bet, depending on the exchange rate on the day. And if that bet is the only winning ticket, the customer will get 1/24th of the pool and the remainder will be carried over. To get the full UK Tote payout on a commingled Quartet requires playing the bet to a R24 unit.

That aside, the introduction of commingled Quartet bets has given TabGold customers many more opportunities to play Quartets on UK and Irish races, and access to bigger pools and payouts.

David Thiselton

The KZN Racing awards will be held on 30 August in the Classic Room at Hollywoodbets Greyville and there is going to be a quandary this year about the KZN Horse Of The Season just as there was last year.

The Horse Of The Year award, unlike the other awards, are open to horses from the yards of trainers who are not domiciled in KZN as long as the subject horse has had three or more runs in KZN. It can thus be won by an out of province horse who has excelled in KZN during the season. The other awards can only be won by horses from KZN  yards, although Glen Kotzen and Dean Kannemeyer count as KZN yards because they have had satellite yards in KZN for many years.

The Horse Of The Year exclusion was probably made due to there not being a suitable candidate for some seasons in recent times. However, should not genuine KZN-trained horses like the Michael Roberts-trained See It Again last year and the Nathan Kotzen-trained Royal Victory this year be acknowledged in some way? Everybody in the industry would have viewed the former as the best horse from KZN in the 2022/2023 season, although the Peter Muscutt-trained Isivunguvungu could also have laid a claim, and this season Royal Victory is viewed by all and sundry as the best horse from KZN, although the Gareth van Zyl-trained Flag Man could also lay a claim having performed better on paper than Royal Victory in both the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Durban July and Gr 1 wfa HKJC Champions Cup.

The Highveld racing awards could also potentially lead to an out of province horse being named Horse Of The Season. They are actually called the Highveld Feature Season awards as they go on performances of horses on the Highveld in features races during the season. Royal Victory was thus named the Champion Middle Distance Horse and Champion Older Male in the Highveld feature Season awards this year and he was only ousted in the Horse Of The Season award by the outstanding Mike de Kock-trained Gimme A Nother.

However, the big difference is that the Highveld features only have a sprinkling of out of province horses competing in them. The Horse Of The Season award will virtually always be won by a Highveld horse and was this year it went to the outstanding Mike de Kock-trained Gimme A Nother, even though Royal Victory became the first out of province horse in history to win both of the Highveld’s biggest races, the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup and the Gr 1 World Pool Premier’s Champions Challenge.

The KZN horses, on the other hand, have to compete with every champion from every province, because all champions from around the country descend on KZN for the three month long world famous racing festival, The Champions Season.

Last year the Horse Of The Season was won by the Sean Tarry-trained Princess Calla, who won three Gr 1s in KZN during the season.

This year the favourite must be the Mike de Kock-trained Dave The King. He qualifies because he ran in KZN three times in the season and he won two open weight for age Gr 1s in KZN. He was in fact the only horse in the country to have won two open wfa Gr 1s last season.

However, Royal Victory is a history-making KZN horse. On top of being the first out of province horse to do the Highveld double of the Summer Cup and Premier’s Champions Challenge, he is in fact the first out of province horse to have ever won the Premier’s Champions Challenge and the second out of province horse this millennium to have won the Summer Cup.

He could well go home empty-handed on KZN Awards night. If Dave The King is to be named Horse Of The Season then he must also surely be named Champion Older Male. Furthermore, the Dean Kannemeyer-trained Green With Envy ran three times in KZN during the season, so qualifies for awards as explained earlier by Kannemeyer’s KZN status, and like Royal Victory he won two middle distance Gr 1s during the season and one of them was in KZN, so he must be in pole position to win the Middle Distance award.

So the widely acknowledged best horse in KZN, Royal Victory, might be completely unacknowledged in his home province.

There are special awards occasionally put on at racing award ceremonies and this might be a case in point of creating one.

However, what would probably be better considering the realities of racing in KZN during any given season, would be to create a new permanent award to acknowledge KZN’s best horse of the season. The award should only be open to horses from KZN yards.