The Vodacom Durban July Final Field and Draw ceremony will be held in the Classic Room at Greyville tomorrow (Tuesday) and the panelists tasked with choosing the final 18 runners with two reserves only look to have one tough decision to make this year. However, it will likely have the usual repercussions and being on this panel must be one of the most unenviable positions in racing.
Their job this year has been made easier by the important scratchings of Legislate, Ertijaal and No Worries, who were all in the top 18 on the last July log.
However, realistically there are only five horses with claims to fill those three places.
The Equus Champion Stayer Hot Ticket is one of them, but he likely needed to win the Gr 2 Track And Ball Derby on Sunday to ensure his place. Instead he finished a narrow second. However, running in a 2400m event just less than two weeks before the July is not an ideal preparation anyway and this horse’s chief target is undoubtedly the Gr 1 eLan Property Group Gold Cup on Super Saturday. However, Hot Ticket could well be announced as one of the two reserve runners.
That leaves Ice Machine, Dynamic, Helderberg Blue and Mac De Lago and it is likely that the final berth will be fought out by the last three mentioned.
Ice Machine, who won the Gr 2 Drill Hall Stakes, was fancied for the Gr 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge before unfortunately going lame somewhere between Summerveld and Greyville. However, he was 19th on the last July log and has done nothing wrong since, so should be an automatic to fill one of the three places. Some will claim he won’t stay the 2200m July trip, but he has won over 1800m and in his second attempt at the J&B Met over 2000m last year he ran on well for a 3,4 length sixth, beating the like of a No Worries, Wylie Hall and Hot Ticket, who all appeared on the last July log.
Dynamic, Helderberg Blue, Mac De Lago and Hot Ticket were all among the five horses listed in alphabetical order just outside the top 20 in that last log. They will all leapfrog the log’s 20th placed horse Athina, who finished a tailed off last in the Gr 3 Cup Trial last time out and has duly been scratched. The fifth horse in the list just outside the top 20 was Unparalleled, who has also been scratched.
Dynamic was close up placed in all of the Listed Sledgehammer, the Gr 2 Betting World 1900 and the Gr 3 Cup Trial and beat Helderberg Blue in the latter two races. However, Helderberg Blue will be 3,5kg better off with Dynamic in the July for a mere 0,75 length beating in the Cup Trial (Dynamic carried 0,5kg overweight in that race). Helderberg Blue also comfortably beat Dynamic when finishing third in the Gr 1 J&B Met, although the latter was below par that day. Therefore, Helderberg Blue has just as strong a claim as Dynamic to make the final field.
The three-year-old Mac De Lago ran on very well for second in the Gr 2 KRA Guineas before staying on well for 5th in the Gr 1 Daily News 2000. He is merit rated 104, three points higher than Dynamic and three points lower than Helderberg Blue. However, he is set to carry the same weight as Dynamic in the July of 53kg. Three-year-olds should receive 2kg in a true handicap over 2200m in July from older horses according to the weight for age scale. This means that while Mac De Lago will officially be 3kg under sufferance in the July, Dynamic will only be 2,5kg under sufferance, so it would be difficult to favour one over the other based on merit ratings.
Finding two places for those three horses is likely to cause much debate among the panelists and, despite there looking likely to be only one unlucky horse, the decision making process will probably bring on as many headaches as usual.
By David Thiselton
