Black Saturday for punters worldwide as favourites bite the dust

Stock market investors will be aware of the Black Friday crash in March 2008, and last weekend racing fans around the world had their own “Black Saturday”. 

Here is how the drama unfolded leaving punters with empty pockets.

Australia: The A$15m Everest race at Randwick racecourse in Sydney was expected to go the way of the world’s champion sprinter, Nature Strip. Connections were rewarded with a memorable win in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, and he was understandably odds-on favourite for last Saturday’s race.

Unfortunately, the race didn’t go according to the script with Nature Strip  finishing only fourth behind surprise winner, Giga Kick.

England: Racing fans descended on Ascot racecourse where unbeaten Baaeed was expected to make 11 wins from 11 races and retire to stud with only three fewer wins than the mighty Frankel.

Once again the favourite went missing with the 1-4 chance struggling in the soft ground and — similar to Native Strip — having to settle for fourth place behind the 10-1 winner, Bay Bridge.

That wasn’t the only race that had the bookies smiling as Frankie Dettori’s mount, Inspiral, was expected to crown an outstanding season by winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. The filly was sent off the 11-10 favourite.

Her many supporters would have gasped in disbelief as Inspiral seemed to fall asleep in the stalls and lost many lengths when the gates opened. The winner was Roger Varian’s runner, Bayside Boy, who started at 33-1.

If punters thought they could get out of jail in the final race — the Balmoral Handicap — they found another nail hammered into their coffin with victory going to 80-1 outsider, Shelir. The trifecta paid more than R35,000.

SA: Turffontein hosted a nine-race programme at the city track. The first leg of the Pick Six went the way of Stuart Pettigrew’s talented filly, Gilded Butterfly, who notched the seventh win of her career. After that things went awry.

While Brett Crawford’s son, James, has done a good job with the stable’s team on the highveld, there weren’t many pundits predicting a win for the mare, Pink Tourmaline, in the second leg of the Pick Six as she hadn’t been seen in action since finishing unplaced in the Gold Bracelet at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Gold Cup day.

But JP van der Merwe, riding with great confidence since his return from Singapore, got the best out of the daughter of Futura to take first prize for owner-breeders, Drakenstein Stud.

Most Pick Six tickets went into the bin after the third leg, which was won by 40-1 chance, Pascals Samore. Studying the form, any tipster would have rated the six-year-old mare as a likely candidate for last place, yet she managed to beat a field of females with some fair form.

Van der Merwe was also on the mark in the fourth leg of the Pick Six overcoming a shocking draw to score on 10-1 chance Forever Mine. As the gelding hails from the powerful stable of Mike de Kock, some backers will have included the five-year-old in their perms though he wasn’t expected to beat the 33-20 favourite, Outofthedarkness.

The mystery about the fifth leg winner, Bloomington, is why the four-year-old — returned at more than 12-1 in official betting — paid a paltry R5 for a win on the tote?

With Vanderbilt and Argo Alley in the line-up for this 1,500m contest, Bloomington looked an unlikely winner, but must have been the subject of a large bet on the tote.

Most form experts would have been convinced that the well-drawn Meridius would save the day for many punters but — it was the same sad story — with Ashley Fortune’s three-year-old beaten by the top-weight, Fast Love.

Still, racing fans will quickly put the setbacks of “Black Saturday” behind them, and will be studying hard for the next meeting.