Andrew Harrison

William Robertson is every owner’s dream horse and has done the list of owners under his name in the racecard proud. ‘Willie’ may never have hit the headlines in the way of an Eight On Eighteen or One Stripe, but he is as honest as the day is long and has a constitution of iron. Corne Spies has done a wonderful job in keeping the son of Rafeef sound and enjoying his racing and the gelding fully deserved his win in the Gr1 Computaform Sprint back in March last year. However, he had been winless since in nine subsequent outings but back on what is possibly his favourite course and distance, he was hardly pressed to score the 16^th win of his career from 52 starts. He landed the African Holly Stakes at Hollywoodbets Scottsville yesterday with consummate ease.

As expected, King Of The Gauls under Andrew Fortune took off like a scalded cat but Ryan Munger sat in just behind with the balance of the field including fancied Cats Pajamas all out-paced.

King Of The Gauls was always in contention approaching the final furlong but Munger had barely moved and pressing for a final effort he left King Of The Gauls for dead with the balance trailing in with the washing.

While William Robertson as a seven-year-old is close to his ‘sell by date’ the Gareth van Zyl-trained Wild Justice is a young colt on the up and registered his fourth win from five starts when winning the B Stakes over 1200m.

Always in contention, he drew away to win comfortably from top-rated Talk To The Master who did have 4kg relief in the form of apprentice Dezahn Louw so it will be interesting to see how the handicappers view this run but not likely to increase much from his current 99 rating.

It was not an afternoon without incident. One sees Formula 1 drivers walk away from 250kph high-speed crashes with little more than a shake-up and good to go the following week, but jockeys are always on the edge as all that they have for protection is a skullcap and a body protector. Thankfully incidents are few and far between but when they do happen they can be catastrophic for both horse and rider.

The Maiden, second race on the card, was already a mess as hot favourite Best Of All broke through his stall and bolted the course and was withdrawn. Then Nathan Detroit refuse to load, further delaying the start before also being scratched.

Worse was to come as Mount Kennedy went down on his nose at around the 400m mark dislodging Athandiwe Mgudlwa in a horrific fall.

The horse left the track seemingly none the worse for wear but Mgudlwa was taken to hospital. According to on-course medial reports he was fully conscious with no obvious breaks but is in observation for head injuries.

Most impressive winner on the day came in the card opener where Master Magician ran his field ragged. Mike Miller’s charge shed his maiden in equally impressive fashion and while one can question the strength of the opposition given this being early in the season, he does look to be a horse with a future although the vet may be called in given his pre-race antics with Tristan Godden just managing to stay aboard coming out of the entrance to the track.

Tienie Prinsloo will be on edge when Quickstepgal steps out onto the Hollywoodbets Kenilworth turf in the Gr1 Maine Chance Farms Majorca Stakes on Saturday but One Smart Cookie paid for his air fare to Cape Town as Serino Moodley produced her with a smart late effort to win the Middle Stakes ahead of the hard-knocking Tara Star.

Most Pick 6 tickets were in the waste bin after the first leg as 50-1 chance Reign On Impact got home ahead of Day Two in a decidedly modest field. The two came together a long way out but apprentice Louw’s 4kg claim came into play and S’Manga Khumalo was unable to get Day Two past. On course presenter and an astute studier of form, Rahiel Radhakrishna’s pre-race advice that the field in the first leg was the way to play, proved spot on.

David Thiselton

 

Gavin Lerena and the Drakenstein Stud-bred One Stripe did South Africa proud in the Gr 1 US$1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf invitational at Gulf Stream Park on Saturday and were cost victory only because they ran out of race track on the tight track, which has a straight of probably less than 400m long.

The Hollywood Racing and Rikesh Sewgoolam-owned One World colt pinged the gates and Lerena then did what the horse likes i.e. just left him alone and allowed him to find a rhythm.

One Stripe ended up one wide of the rail, which was important as it would allow him some options in the straight, and he was about fourth last in the 12 horse field. .

He was a bit tight for room in between horses though.

The horse on his outside moved up as they began rounding the turn three furlongs from home.

Gavin was thus able to switch One Stripe outward and he followed the outside train, where there was good pace as another horse had made a surging run from second last.

South African fans were not too perturbed when One Stripe did not make immediate inroads after the slingshot in to the straight and lost a little bit of ground to the horse he had followed, Almendares.

He has always taken his time to accelerate and this is because Gavin, as a fine horseman, ensures he is balanced before asking him for his final effort.

Gavin switched him further outward into space and then changed whip hands and it looked at this stage as if the horses on the inside were getting away, including Test Score who had hit the front with Almendares challenging him.

However, One Stripe then took off and began eating up the ground on the outside.

South African fans held their breath as it was touch and go whether he would fetch his Graham Motion-trained stablemate Test Score.

However, he just ran out of real estate and he was beaten a neck.

Graham Motion will now rest Test Score, but he said big things lay ahead for One Stripe, who had clearly enjoyed being stepped up beyond a mile for the first time.

He praised Lerena’s ride and rightly so. It was Gavin’s first ever ride in the USA, where the style of racing is very different to South Africa, and yet his ride was faultless.

One Stripe had impressed in his previous start over a mile on the same course and was just 0,4 seconds outside the course record.

One of the presenters did not give him much chance of a repeat, pointing out he had beaten horses last time out that would be “100/1 shots” if they were in the Pegasus Turf and then pointing out his unimpressive run in the Gr 1 Woodbine Mile and a “terrible” run in the Gr 1 Breeders Cup Turf.

However, South African fans who know One Stripe would have seen the Woodbine Mile not panning out well under a ride that could have been criticised and he was given a ride in the Breeders Cup that went completely against his style as he was sent to the front at a fast pace, whereas he is a horse who likes to be left alone early before using his magnificent turn of foot in the straight.

Furthermore, there is nobody who knows One Stripe better than Gavin Lerena.

Gavin had a restriction on his visa and was thus unable to ride in more than just the one race, which was not ideal having never ridden in the USA before.

However, he is the ultimate professional and would have watched plenty of replays plus the racing on the day and he walked the course beforehand.

The betting public had more faith in One Stripe than the aforementioned presenter did and he was second favourite behind hot favourite Program Trading, who finished fifth.

It was a great day for Hollywood Racing and Riskesh Sewgoolam as they have much to look forward to with this star colt.

South African success did not end with One Stripe, because in the main event, the Gr 1 US$3 million Pegasus World Cup, the reigning champion White Abbario is part-owned by USA-based South African Gary Barber and he only just failed to defend his title in the dirt race. He was caught late by the outsider Skippylongstocking and finished a 1,75 length second.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong on Sunday the legendary Silent Witness, who was always ridden by South African legend Felix Coetzee, is now only the joint Hong Kong record-holder of a winning sequence as the world’s best sprinter Ka Ying Rising cruised to his 17th win in a row under Zac Purton. The New Zealand-bred David Hayes-trained gelding won the Gr 1 The Centenary Sprint Cup over 1200m.

Silent Witness was unbeaten when he gained his 17th successive victory, whereas Ka Ying Rising did suffer two early defeats.

The world’s highest earning racehorse ever, Romantic Warrior, also won a Gr 1 at Sunday’s Sha Tin meeting. The Danny Shum-trained gelding won the HK$13 million Stewards Cup over 1600m under James McDonald.

 

Please Note: South African Quartet Pools with fractional betting offered at Naas (IRE) and Sedgefield (UK) – 25 January 2026.

Soccer10 Sunday 25 January 2026. Carryover R150 000. Estimated Pool: R1.7 Million. Pool Closes at 18h30. Sport 20 and Pool 1.

 

David Thiselton

The 2026 Hollywoodbets Durban July will be a milestone one with the prize money doubled to R10 million and with a longer handicap introduced as the topweight will be upped to 62kg and bottom weight lowered to 52kg.

It will fittingly fall on the 30th anniversary of the centenary July, which turned out to be one of the greatest of all Julys as it was won by the legendary Alec Laird-trained London News, who went on to put South African racing on the map by winning the QE II Cup in Hong Kong.

The renowned South African wildlife painter Henk Vos released his celebrated work, the Painting Of The Century, depicting a century of July winners, after the July’s centenary running.

The iconic painting now hangs in the Classic Room at Hollywoodbets Greyville.

Alec Laird actually ordered one of the prints of the painting before it was completed as the print had the first of his great Uncle Syd Garrett’s five July winners on the left and the greatest of his father’s record seven July winners, Sea Cottage, was in the centre.

The right hand side just had a blank with a silhouette of a horse, because Vos did not know yet which horse he was going to paint there.

Alec, who trained out of Randjesfontein on the Highveld, related, “He hadn’t made up his mind what horse he was going to put in the last panel (the 20th panel) and he even said to me ‘I would like you to win the July because I would like to put you as the last painting.’ With about a year to go I said to him I’m not going to make it.’”

However, fate then had it that London News not only became the 14/10 favourite for the 100th running of the July, but he was also saddle cloth number 20, being the only three-year-old in the field and the bottom weight.

Piere Strydom recalled, “I remember at the traditional Friday night cocktail Henk Vos was there with his big painting and there was one spot left for the 100th winner and I can still remember saying to someone that I think my picture’s going to be up there.”

London News duly won the race and Alec, London News and Piere Strydom are now at the forefront of the famous painting’s 20th panel and the horse is fittingly carrying the no. 20 saddle cloth.

The London News story starts at the National Yearling Sale of 1994.

Alec recalled big owners Laurie and Jean Jaffee’s chief aim at that Sale was to buy a yearling by their own 1987 July winner, Bush Telegraph.

Alec recalled Harmony Forever being his number one choice at that Sale.

However, he remembered London News being “a nice horse.”

He added, “On the first day a Bush Telegraph colt called Mr Newspaperman went for about R300,000. London News looked more athletic and Jean Jaffee actually said to me, ‘What about this one?’ On the first day they didn’t get a horse, the second day they didn’t get one and the more they asked me about London News the nicer he got, because I was otherwise going to go home without a horse!”

The Jaffees managed to secure London News.

Alec recalled, “He was a light youngster and even as a three-year-old was quite light. He didn’t show immediately, but we always had the feeling that he would be a nice horse when he matured.”

In fact, London News made a particularly inauspicious debut, beaten no fewer than 16,5 lengths under Anton Marcus in a 1200m Maiden Juvenile Plate over 1200m at the Vaal on June 6, 1995.

However, he got better and better and when he smashed the Greyville 2000m course record, which still stands today, in the Gr 1 Daily News 2000, he had won six out of eleven starts including the Dingaans and two middle distance Gr 1s.

Piere Strydom was aboard for the Daily News 2000 too.

He reflected on the 1996 July, the first of his four victories in South Africa’s greatest race, “London News was a lekker horse to ride because he had gate speed, a lot of natural speed and he would travel right up there in front and he had a good kick. But at the top of the straight (having led) I thought with a light weight let me just let the reins go a bit and get a length or two for the short straight. But he accelerated way quicker than I had expected and that’s when he made up three or four lengths on the field. Obviously it was going to tell at the end and he was stopping quite badly at the end. I heard the horses coming and I was just hoping for the line and he held on.”

Alec added, “Mike Rattray had invited me to watch in his box because it was on the line and he won by a neck but my eyes wouldn’t believe it because there was so much pressure. I wanted to see the number up!”

Alec described the emotion of being on the honour roll together with his late record-breaking seven-time July-winning father Syd.

In fact his extended family is comfortably the most prolific July-winning family in history with his grandfather Alec winning one as a jockey, his great Uncle Syd Garrett winning two as a jockey and three as a trainer, his father Syd winning a record seven as a trainer, and the cousins Dennis Drier, Alec Laird and Charles Laird each winning one July apiece – a total of 16 for the July dynasty.