Photo by Gold Circle
Wednesday, 18 January 2012: Saturday's R600,000, Betting World Cape Flying Championship (1000m) promises to be the outstanding sprint race of the South African season with a select field of six including the three champion sprinters of the nation gathering for a race befitting its name.
What A Winter, the Cape's champion and last year's winner, is up against the Johannesburg's international traveller, J J The Jet Plane, and from KwaZulu-Natal there is the outstanding sprinting mare Val De Ra.
Val De Ra has an impeccable record, facing the starter 11 times for 10 wins and a third place. Six of those races have been black type races including two at the very highest level, with Grade 1 victories in the Computaform Sprint over 1000m at Turffontein last April and the SA Fillies Sprint over 1200m at Scottsville in May.
The five-year-old Var mare, a homebred for Avontuur Estate, and trained by Dennis Drier, has not just a racing record for the ages, she has also had to overcome adversity that would have felled mere mortals and returned to the race track at the highest level.
Photo by Liesl King
Val De Ra contracted peritonitis requiring extensive veterinary care and she was away from the track for a nearly a year, with doubts whether she would ever race again. Fortunately she is an incredibly laidback mare and that characteristic allowed her to cope with the stresses of care and recovery.
“She is so laidback she will come into your living room if you ask her,” comments Drier on the mare's demeanour.
Drier knew he had Val De Ra back to her racing best when he applied training pressure to her. The astute horseman believes in having his horses' 100% race fit before entering them in races. They are ready to race from the moment they leave the barriers.
Val De Ra was therefore naturally ready for her first assignment, after her time off, when she won the Listed KwaZulu-Natal Stakes over her favourite 1000m distance at Clairwood Park at the start of April. She has never been defeated over this distance and this race was no exception.
Drier then sent her to Turffontein for a clash with the males and older horses in the Grade 1 Computaform Sprint at the end of April. Not only did she win, but she did so with 1 3/4L to spare over What A Winter under regular jockey Alex Forbes.
Photo by Liesl King
It was a performance of the highest quality and a testament to Drier's training and Avontuur's patience.
After a well deserved break, Val De Ra travelled to Cape Town for a race of emotional significance for her owners, the Grade 2, Tony Taberer Southern Cross Stakes over 1000m. The race was named in memory of the founder of Avontuur Estate, the late Tony Taberer, who also secured Val De Ra's sire Var to stand at his Cape stud.
Val De Ra carried 60kg to win with 2L in hand up the Kenilworth sprint track. This track dips and rises to the finish and the easy win under the top-weight franked her quality for the connections and Drier.
On Saturday she faces the males again in the Cape Flying Championship, but this time she has weight relief carrying 57.5kg with the rest of the field having 60kg.
Drier is confident of his mare and reports that she is fit and ready for her assignment and over her favourite distance of 1000m Val De Ra must be hard to beat, but it is a clash of supreme sprinters and certainly a race to look forward to.
