Marinaresco seeks Champions Cup double

THE R1-million World Sports Betting Champions Cup has the hallmarks of a race that could go down as one of the greatest thoroughbred clashes in South African racing history.

This Grade 1 race over 1 800m at Greyville on the first day of the two-day Gold Cup Festival Of Racing has brought together a group of the best horses in the country, including four Grade 1 winners who could all make their mark on the international stage.

The Champions Cup heads Saturday’s nine-race card while the Grade 3 eLan Gold Cup over 3 200m, the Premiers Champion Stakes and Thekwini Stakes for fillies, both Grade 1 events over 1 600m with prize money of R750 000 each, head up Sunday’s 10-race card at the same venue.

Marinaresco has already put his name in the record books when winning the Vodacom Durban July under 60kg this month, but could become only the second horse this century to win the Champions Cup in two successive years. The only other horse to do so was Futura in 2014 and 2015.

The four-year-old son of Silvano is not well drawn but he will be dropped out early on so it won’t make much of a difference.

Brett Crawford-trained Captain America thrashed the opposition in the Grade 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge and while he has not won over further than 1 600m is rarely far off them over this sort of distance.

Capable of upsetting all her opponents and also from the Cape is brilliant Dynasty filly Bela-Bela from the Justin Snaith stable who was a facile winner of the Grade 1 Jonsson Workwear Garden Province Stakes. This is expected to be her last run before being retired to stud.

Her impressive record includes victory in the Grade 1 Paddock Stakes at Kenilworth at the beginning of the year.– Gold Circle