Get ready for sunny Met
UP IN THE AIR: CLASH OF SIX ABOVE-AVERAGE HORSES MAY BE UPSTAGED
If disruptive factors come into play, one of the lesser seven mounts may change the story.
The weather is likely to be fine at Kenilworth today and the field of runners must be one of the most classy and competitive in the long history of Cape Town’s biggest horse race, the Sun Met.
However, a few known unknowns have the racing world a tad nervous – the Mother City’s famous southeaster might pick up speed during the afternoon, the pace of this race has been known to throw up mega-surprises and the possibility of delays in the preliminaries hold seeds of disaster for some contenders.
The 5/2 race favourite, Hawwaam, could be affected by the last of these irritations as he is notorious for being bolshy on the big day – famously being scratched from the 2019 Durban July after becoming unruly and injuring himself in the starting machine.
As rising star Vardy galloped to victory in the Queen’s Plate, there was widespread speculation that other fancied horses’ chances might have ebbed away as things were held up by multiple shoe and bridle adjustments – Horse of the Year Do It Again and reigning Met champ Rainbow Bridge failing to meet high expectations.
Both these horses had excuses in their previous outing, the Grade 2 Green Point Stakes, thanks to a muddled pace in the early stages of the race due to jockeys’ paranoia about the southeaster headwind, and measures to find a travelling position where they would be shielded from it.
This force of nature is sometimes related to the phenomenon known as the “Cape Crawl”. Kenilworth seems ideally suited to riders who want to create mischief with the speed of a distance race, slowing things down to a dwardle before turning it into a sprint over the final 400m.
Many a Met bomb has landed thanks to these tactics. So, while we imagine a monumental clash between at least six well-above-average horses, should these disruptive factors come into play one of the “lesser” seven could blow away the most well-thought-out calculations.
What will Ryan Moore, one of the world’s top jockeys, flown in to partner Rainbow Bridge, make of all this? He will know that local know-how counts for a bit; but he’ll also know it’s possible to over-think tactics. Having ridden all over the world as No 1 jockey to the legendary Aiden O’Brien stable, Moore has experienced many a changed environment – like last week when he finished runner-up in the Pegasus World Cup in the US, before jetting off to Hong Kong for another second place, and to Saudi Arabia for a race before setting sights on the southern tip of Africa.
Booking Moore could be a masterstroke by Rainbow Bridge’s trainer Eric Sands. The great jockey won’t have had time to indulge the imponderables, but his mount knows the course and is on his third run after a rest – a universally acknowledged positive.
With eight wins from 10 starts, Hawwaam has been touted as SA’s next superstar. This will be his swansong here as De Kock is shipping him out to the UK.
There is no doubt this colt can shift it, but there is a question mark over his temperament; he is also drawn a tad wide and, with riders tucking in to avoid the wind, he could find himself with ground to make up.
Dual Durban July winner Do It Again’s trainer Justin Snaith admits his star has yet to find his spark this term. If he does so on Met day, the opposition will have some running to do.
The horse in unstoppable form this season has been Vardy, from the yard of up-and-coming Adam Marcus. This four-year-old left rivals in his dust in the Green Point and the Queen’s Plate.
One of these four horses should win the 2020 Sun Met – in an equitable world. But racing is seldom fair and rarely predictable, so the canny bettor will look further down the line-up.
One World and Twist Of Fate must be in all bet combinations, while Head Honcho should go in, too. There is a whisper going around about Bunker Hunt, while a blinker strike for Eyes Wide Open should not be ignored.
Everything points to it being a clash for the ages. For the money-minded, there’s a R8 million Quartet in the main race and a R18 million Pick 6 on the meeting.