The 2023 Hollywoodbets Durban July might not have the strongest field ever assembled for Africa’s greatest race but in a different sense it’s one of the most interesting. Neil Morrice previews.
The 2023 Hollywoodbets Durban July might not have the strongest field ever assembled for Africa’s greatest race but in a different sense it’s one of the most interesting.
The prospect of Muis Roberts and Piere Strydom teaming up as trainer and jockey with race favourite SEE IT AGAIN is something for the purist.
Roberts won the July in 1997 on Super Quality but was beaten in it on such greats as Slegehammer, and knows as well as anyone the pitfalls that can await any horse as the race develops in the home straight.
See It Again is out to emulate Big City Life and Legislate as horses to have won the Cape Derby, the Daily News 2000 and the July in the same season.
Speaking to Muis at the Hollywoodbets preview at its Springfield Park outlet on Thursday, he reports his charge to not have missed a single day, hour or minute in his preparation for the July, but suggested See It Again would need the same luck in running as all closers do in the narrowed Greyville straight. Granted that, he is in no doubt he fields the best horse in the race.
The consensus amongst the South African racing cognoscenti is that the Cape three-year-olds are superior to those from Johannesburg. If correct this augers well for the Justin Snaith-trained WITHOUT QUESTION, but of that trainer’s five July runners it’s the combination of POMP AND POWER and DO IT AGAIN that float my boat – both carded at 20-1 with Hollywoodbets but both capable of causing a minor upset.
Pomp And Power is an enigmatic, nervous individual who comes with risks attached. This was mirrored in the Met when the chestnut was consistently denied racing real estate, but passed a big bunch of horses to grab third to Jet Dark while looking unlucky not to win. His behaviour faced with a predicted 50,000 crowd on Saturday will surely play its part in whether it’s a show or no show, but interestingly he’s drawn in the same gate (18) as The Conglomerate when he triumphed under an exhibition ride from Strydom in 2016. Bernard Fayd’Herbe will possibly seek a copybook passage on the part Greg Bortz-owned four-year-old, and if getting lucky they can win.
The grand old man of the party is DO IT AGAIN, a two times winner and three times placed from six appearances in the July. Snaith could have played a mastercard in booking Gavin Lerena for the eight-year-old for the first time, reasoning that over the 2200 metres the eight-year-old comes alive.
Do It Again stretched out as quickly as anything else at the July gallops and in his trainer’s view will benefit from having a quieter rider with great skills in horsemanship to guide him through the race.
Lerena is the man to do it, and it’s through reasoned fact and not sentimentality that I think DO IT AGAIN will come away with a decent cheque on Saturday.
Prediction: 1st DO IT AGAIN, 2nd Pomp And Power, 3rd See It Again, 4th Winchester Mansion, 5th Safe Passage
