Pudding’s class can tell
CUP DAY: R20 MILLION TAB PICK 6 POOL AS STAR FILLY BIDS TO RETAIN UNBEATEN RECORD There’s no substitute for class and Paul Peter’s champion has oodles.
Unbeaten champion filly and Horse-of-the-Year Summer Pudding is set to crown a magnificent year by making it nine from nine in the World Sports Betting Gauteng Summer Cup over 2 000m at Turffontein tomorrow.
The Cup is Gauteng’s greatest race, but as is normal at sporting events in this pandemic-ravaged era, few people will be there to cheer this talented heroine on.
For the first time in a long history tracing back to the discovery of gold on the farm Turffontein in 1886, the Cup will take place behind closed doors.
But the lack of spectators will have minimal impact on the spectacle and excitement. The vast majority of racing fans take in the action on television anyway, and for them it will be every bit as nail-biting as before.
Six of the 10 races at Turffontein are feature events and TAB has made the brew of quality races and big betting pools even more intoxicating with two mega carryovers.
The economic fallout from Covid-19 makes estimating pool totals hazardous, but the Pick 6 gets a R5 million carryover boost that should generate a final pool of R20 million. That’s big money to be shared by those clever or lucky enough to pick the winners of races 4 to 9.
The Quartet on the Cup (pick the first four in the correct order) also has the ingredients to produce a big payout. A R2 million carryover should produce a final pool of some R7 million and there’s nary a Cup runner one can safely say has no chance.
The Cup is a proper handicap in which runners carry different weights to give them a theoretically equal chance of winning. As such, anything can happen and that’s what makes it such a fascinating contest.
It’s also new territory for Summer Pudding. Most of her races have been at level weights against female contemporaries, but now she’s up against a bunch of male scrappers and must give most of them weight.
That said Summer Pudding is the real deal. Weight stops trains is an oft-quoted racing adage, but there’s no substitute for class and this girl has that in abundance. As would be expected from her pedigree, she’s improving with age and is probably better than rated.
Her trainer Paul Peter is enjoying another good season after finishing third on the national log last year and he’s delighted with Summer Pudding’s preparation.
Champion jockey Warren Kennedy rides and while the duo may lack vocal support at the track, they can bank on most of the TV audience willing them on. There are dangers aplenty. Peter’s other two runners come into the picture and champion trainer Sean Tarry has five horses in the field in his bid to win the Cup four years running. On paper there’s little separating the f irst 10 home in the recent Charity Mile, but Tarry’s Cornish Pomodoro should fare best of that group now and can chase Summer Pudding home. Trainer Mike de Kock has won the race a record nine times, so respect his runner Charles, who ran a cracker in the Charity Mile, as well as Pack Leader and Youcanthurrylove.
What a script.
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