Call to change staying races

Dan Katz has issued a heartfelt plea to the authorities to change the terms of some of the staying races in the Cape summer season.

He said: “There are three races in Cape Town for stayers leading up to the big one, the Western Cape Stayers on Met day, yet all three – Woolavington, Cape Summer Stayers and Chairman’s Cup – are handicaps.

“The best horses should be running in these features and the public want to see them but you can’t continually pitch your good horses into them with huge weights, and nor should they be weighted out like this.

“The handicapper has given Let It Rain 64.5kg in the Woolavington on Sunday but I have to run the horse because I need to get races into him and, in any case, the next staying race is also a handicap. They should seriously think about adjusting the conditions along the lines of a Pinnacle and then the best horses might not have to give away quite so much.”

Katz had his biggest success so far when Let It Rain won the Grade 2 Heineken Cape Stayers in January. Since then the six-year-old has travelled the country. He went to Ashley Fortune to win the second of his three races in Johannesburg before going to Durban for the Gold Vase and the Gold Cup. He returned to Katz at the beginning of August.

Greg Cheyne rides this