Cup beauties
Gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in 1886 and the Summer Cup was first run in 1887. And 131 years later, the race is one of the biggest events of South African racing.
It carries prize money of R2 million and is run over 2 000m at Turffontein Racecourse.
On Saturday, 18 horses go to the post for the G-Bets Gauteng Summer Cup. Some will become legends. Then there are trainers, jockeys and owners who have already won this race and want to up their tally. Two trainers have stood out in recent years – Mike de Kock and Geoff Woodruff.
The Summer Cup has great significance for De Kock. As a young trainer who had just taken over the stable of Ricky Howard Ginsberg, this race provided him with his first Grade 1 winner when, in 1989, he won it with Evening Mist.
He has since trained another 116 Grade 1 winners, equalling the South African record held by Terrance Millard, among them a further eight Summer Cup champions.
His last win was in 2010 with Flirtation and this year he has to be the favourite to win his 10th Summer Cup as he has five runners. The two fillies, Cascapedia and Takingthepeace, top the betting boards at 5/1 and 6/1 respectively, Noble Secret is quoted at 7/1 with Like A Panther at 16/1. His fifth runner is Kilrain, the biggest outsider at 80/1.
Woodruff has won this race six times, first in 1999 with El Picha and again in 2000 with Eventuail. He had an 11-year hiatus, but came back with a bang in 2013 with Yorker and won in 2014 with Louis the King and again in 2015 and 2016 with Master Sabina. He finished fourth last year with Pagoda and this year he is represented by a very strong runner in the filly Secret Potion (10/1) and a capable outsider in Deo Juvente (33/1).
The Citizen will publish a bumper Summer Cup edition tomorrow, with a 12-page Racing Express and a four-page wraparound on the newspaper. Get all the racing information for only R7.