Crawford cements his position in the big league with July win

Trainer Brett Crawford would be first to admit his career hasn’t been a bed of roses, but the tears of the 2012 July and being sacked by a top owner were forgotten as Winchester Mansion gained a narrow verdict in the 2023 Hollywoodbets Durban July.

Crawford had to stomach seeing his top horse, Jackson, turn in a lacklustre performance in SA’s most famous race 11 years ago and had also lost the job as retained trainer to Sabine Plattner.

But to his credit Crawford has stayed in the premier league of trainers and has saddled more than 100 winners this season.

However, none will have given him more satisfaction than Winchester Mansion with the four-year-old — expertly ridden by Kabelo Matsunyane — just getting the better of the favourite, See It Again.

For the second year running, it was a good result for Business Day racing followers with our Friday story declaring “Rascallion and Winchester Mansion make most appeal in Durban July”.

Rascallion disappointed and finished 10th, but Winchester Mansion returned R9.40 for a win on the tote.

The result put the cherry on top of a truly memorable season for the four-year-old’s owners and breeders, Drakenstein Stud. They are also the breeders of the runner-up, See It Again.

As we revealed on Friday, Winchester Mansion, a son of Trippi, nearly lost his life when breaking his neck as a youngster. All that care to get the horse back to full health gained its just reward on Saturday.

Probably a runner who hardly got a mention from pundits — the three-year-old filly Bless My Stars — ran the race of her short career taking the third purse on her 12th start.

Do It Again will turn nine years of age at the end of the month yet the dual July winner fully justified the decision by connections to keep the veteran performer in training by finishing fourth.

The big disappointment of the race was 8-1 chance, Without Question, who beat two rivals home. The three-year-old is also owned by Nic Jonsson who will have travelled to the course full of confidence with this Snaith inmate and See It Again racing in his colours.

Happily, this column also got it right in the grade 2 Durban Golden Horseshoe with Sandringham Summit weaving his way through in the straight to win going away at the good odds of 6-1.

It was a big victory for the reasonably small Gauteng stable of David Nieuwenhuizen but the R1.7m son of Gimmethegreenlight had hinted there was better to come with three promising runs under his belt.

Mike de Kock's juvenile, Gimmeanotherchance, had to settle for second place and contributed to a frustrating meeting for the former champion trainer with Desert Miracle again finding Princess Calla too smart in the Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes.

The meeting had a bizarre early end with racegoers confused at the delay in the running of the 10th race. The city of Durban threw the spanner in the works with an unanticipated power outage which understandably upset the jockeys.

They protested that it was unsafe to ride given the possibility of the lights going out in a race and the last three events were abandoned.

Obviously, there will be furious discussions on Monday how this happened at such a big sporting occasion. It was not frustrating for the 45,000 racegoers but also the sponsors, Hollywoodbets, who had done everything they could to make the meeting a success.