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There's plenty to get punters excited at this year's Durban July.
Picture: iStock
The words “bombs”, “dynamite”, and “have a full go” are blared out by the marketers of Saturday’s Durban July race meeting at Greyville. Just hype? A glance at the massive sums of money on offer for a wide variety of wagers suggests that the fanfare is pretty apt.
It’s not just a huge R15-million Pick 6 mega-pool that’s on the menu.
The Quartet on the July itself, Race 7 on the card, is predicted to amass a pool of more than R10-million.
Tote agency TAB has bunged in a carryover of R1-million to get the big-race Quartet started and popularity of the first-four-finishers prediction is expected to do the rest.
A R500,000 carryover to Jackpot Three on the day is set to push that pool all the way to R3-million. That bet kicks off at 5.40pm in Race 9 on the 12-race programme. Often the third Jackpot at a major meeting is something of an underfunded afterthought; not this time!
Money, money, money
Jackpot One, which starts in Race 1 – off at 11.45am – is likely to have a pool of R750,000.
Jackpot Two, starting in Race 5 on the card, will have R2-million for division among the winning tickets.
The first leg of Bipot One is Race 2 at 12.25pm. The likely pool there is R750,000.
Race 3 at 1.05pm is the first leg of the meeting’s Place Accumulator, which is expected to garner a pool of R2.5-million.
Race 4 at 1.40pm is the first leg of the R15-million Pick6.
Race 7 is, of course, the Grade 1, 2200m Durban July, which carries a purse of R5-million for the successful horses’ owners – and the aforementioned R10-million for winning Quartet punters.
The July is a designated World Pool race of the Hong Kong Jockey Club – which means there is a common, comingled tote on certain bet types for punters around the world. This results in gigantic pools and very stable approximate dividends in the race preamble.
“Expect an Exacta pool of around R5-million, Win and Place pools exceeding R10-million each, and Swinger and Quinella pools of more than R10-million,” says operator Race Coast.
