Snaith saddles five in Durban July as he seeks win number three
Its handicap status; extended newspaper coverage; widespread interest among the populace; the raceday festivity and fashion; the rich prize and billing as Africa’s greatest racing event make the comparison reasonable.
Snaith, previously champion trainer in 2013-14 and with an unassailable lead in this year’s title, has won the Durban July twice and has also had a hand in a Melbourne Cup winner which is surely a unique distinction. Certainly hands on the 1994 winner.
“I spent 18 months with David Hayes back in the 1990s and travelled to Melbourne with Jeune and Blevic in 1994. I rode Jeune in his work on slow mornings and looked after Blevic who won the Derby that year. It was a fantastic time.
“I love Australia and thoroughly enjoyed my time working at Lindsay Park. My timing was perfect with Colin (Hayes) still around and he was, of course, a legend. He’d often fetch me after work was finished in the mornings and ask me what David was doing. It wasn’t long after he’d handed the reins to David.
“My roommates were a great bunch – Tom Dabernig, now training with David; a then thinner Troy Corstens who’s doing so well and a terrific bloke who’s been over here with us and Mark Walker who’s been champion trainer in New Zealand and Singapore,” Snaith said.
The Cape Town-based trainer’s more contemporary connection comes via the Australian-bred three-year-old filly Oh Susanna, who he’s prepared to win three Group 1 races this year which has ensured that she’s the current star of South African racing.
Oh Susanna won’t be running this weekend but Snaith has another three-year-old filly Snowdance who’s a short-priced favourite to win the Group 1 Garden Province Stakes and he has three of the top four in the betting for the Durban July including the favourite African Night Sky who is also at a short quote.
However, as we spoke at the spectacular setting which is the 220 hectare Summerveld Training Centre (700 metres above sea level and about halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg), I got the impression that Snaith feels the race is more open than the market might suggest and I think he ever so slightly hinted that Do It Again might be the one. “He’s done well and he’s very well weighted with 54kg,” he said.
He was certainly keen to talk about Snowdance. “She’s very good. We run her at a mile (1600 metres) here because that’s what’s on the calendar for her but I think she’d be outstanding at 1200 and 1400 metres in England and Europe. Maybe even Australia although the Group 1 sprints there are very tough. I’m sure she’d be, at the very least, a Group 1 competitive sprinter wherever we took her. She’d be the first horse I’d want to take away if the conditions of horse movement open up,” he said.
The vigorous pursuit of convincing the European Union that quarantine restrictions ought to be eased on the export of horses from South Africa means that strict protocols are in place, province to province, in South Africa and that’s a headache for trainers based in Cape Town. That’s further complicated this year by an unusually late onset of winter and its frosts which marks the end of the threat of midges spreading African horse sickness.
There is now hope that the mandatory period of 40 days quarantine in Western Cape will be reduced to 14 days – the incubation period of African horse sickness. That’s dependant on no bio-security breaches.
Hence, Snaith doesn’t know exactly when he’ll have clearance from the Department of Agriculture to move his 30 strong team back to Cape Town from Durban. The team includes Oh Susanna who’s been stable-bound at Summerveld for four weeks since winning the Group 1 Woolavington 2000, when she should be spelling at owner-breeder Gaynor Rupert’s Drakenstein Stud farm.
“It’s a nightmare really. She (Oh Susanna) should be going home. I understand that it will be all worth it if we can get the restrictions lifted on the movement of horses from South Africa and we’ve got the clientele who would travel horses but it’s extremely difficult right now to run a profitable business when you simply don’t know when you can transport your horses within the country.
“In a sense we’ve managed to win the (trainer’s) championship despite being handcuffed,” he said.
The ‘we’ is in reference to his father Chris, brother Jonathan and bloodstock agent John Freeman. “It really has been a team effort to win the championship and enjoy the major race wins we’ve had over the past couple of years. Dad loves to be in the yard; Jonathan is very good in the marketing sphere and John’s a great agent,” said Snaith whose eight winners on the one card on Met day in 2016 is unrivalled on a major race day.
And, despite the troubles of recent weeks with grooms striking (including at Summerveld on Wednesday morning), Snaith has confidence in the future of South African racing.
“The strike wasn’t ideal, especially the timing leading into our big race. Not to mention that I had to ride 12 horses in work myself but we sorted out the grievances in a few hours and it was back to normal on Thursday.
“I think generally the mood and the outlook is good here. I think we’re seeing a gradual changing of the guard in a lot of key areas of racing here and there’s a good core of people who are intent on getting it right,” Snaith said.
Part of what they do right is the South African Jockey Academy which is overseen by Graham Bailey who has a background in mainstream education while the riding master is former jockey Nicky Roebuck who rode, in Australia, for Brett Cavanough and Shane Iverson.
Current pupils include the now Queensland-based champion jockey Jeff Lloyd’s son Jaden while the alumni includes many of South Africa’s great jockeys including current riding sensation and recent graduate Lyle Hewitson.
Lloyd snr is in town to make one last attempt to win the most famous race in his original homeland. He bids to win the race for the first time at his 26th attempt aboard the Snaith-trained Made To Conquer. He’s ridden 11 third placegetters in the race.
There is just one Australian-bred nominated for the big race – the Mike de Kock-trained Yakeen who was bred by Larneuk Stud and sold for $160,000 at Inglis Melbourne Premier but there’s several, unsurprisingly, on the undercard including De Kock’s Golden Horseshoe favourite Soqrat and the half-sister to Igugu, Ngaga, in the Garden Province. De Kock is a four-time winner of the Durban July.