Grey has the finishing speed to make history.
Who will triumph at this weekend’s Durban July? Picture: Nigel Sibanda / The Citizen
It’s been yonks since a grey horse won the July – 18 years ago, to be exact. Good news for multitudes of punters with a soft spot for pigment-challenged ponies is that 2026 has a credible candidate to break the drought.
The runner’s name is Zeitz. He is number 12, drawn OK at 12, and carries the magical July-winning featherweight of 53kg. He’ll be ridden by Durban’s own Serino Moodley. Though he is trained on Western Cape’s beautiful West Coast by Andre Nel, he seems to prefer running in Kwazulu-Natal.
Importantly for the cognoscenti, four-year-old Zeitz is a fast-improving maturer with a notably quick turn of foot – essential for Greyville racecourse’s short straight – as shown recently by his victory on the very same stretch of turf in the 1800m Grade 3 Cup Trial.
At the dawn of July week, Zeitz was priced at 14.29 to win the July (and 2.14 a place), which makes him as a borderline outsider and reflects the usual “wide-open” look about South Africa’s most famous horse race.
The grey does face very stiff opposition from brown rivals, as one might expect of a fabled, Grade 1, R10-million contest.
The worthy favourite at 4.00 is Star Major, victorious in the Grade 1 Daily News 2000, the premier July pointer for three-year-olds at level weights (though he had a 1.5kg weight allowance for a female rider).
Earlier impressive successes in the WSB Guineas and Cape Town’s Politician Stake bolster his case but, for his trouble, Star Major has been lumped with 57kg in the July handicap. That’s a steadying weight for a young horse and this time around no allowance is permitted for French jockey Mickaelle Michel.
Positives for Star Major include a handy No 4 draw; being prepared on the Highveld by James Crawford, who has landed two recent Julys with a similar strategy, and finishing speed that’s up there with Zeitz’s.
If one dreams hard enough, you can see the grey and the bay fighting out the finish of the great race.
Dreams, hopes, bone-throwing, clairvoyancy, numerology, name-conjuring and the like are an essential part of events of the first Saturday in July. Some of the magical thinking does come true, much of it doesn’t. Whatever; we’ll be hearing quite a lot about horses with names like Wish List, Note To Self, Aladdin’s Lamp and Isivivane.
Others we might want to toss into the mix because of their racing credentials include Viva’s Liberte, King Pelles, Gladatorian and I Salute You.
For the record: the last grey to win the Durban July was the filly Dancer’s Daughter, who dead-heated with Pocket Power in 2008. Before that, only four greys had won the race in more than 100 years: Silver Phantom in 1942, Jamaican Music in 1976, Jamaican Rumba in 1982 and Right Prerogative in 1989.
Beaten grey favourites have included Thunder Sky in 1961, when outsider Kerason won, and Bodrum in 1985. the year of Gondolier. Greys Inn triumphed in 2005, but was grey in name alone, being a dark bay colt.
In terms of name, Zeitz is a town in Germany and the word derives from Slavic for “water” or “stream” – or, alternatively, “hare”, which the horse is unlikely to be living up to as he prefers galloping on late from near the back of the field.
Mike Moon’s Hollywoodbets Durban July selection:
12 Zeitz, 4 Star Major, 17 King Pelles, 8 Gladatorian
