I suppose it’s in the nature of sports journalism to emphasize the exceptional. Fans like to follow match or race highlights and concentrate their limited attention spans, in an era of information overload, only on freaky-good performances.
Your faithful weekend correspondent pleads guilty to perpetuating that tendency by writing mainly about top speed figure thoroughbreds, startling achievements and “wow” factor, award winners.
But much of what happens in sport is routine, mediocre and unremarkable. That, however, does not matter to hardened punters, because the smart gambler appreciates that money won even on a humble, low- grade race is worth the same as backing a high-class winner of a Stakes event.
“Snobbishly” avoiding hum-drum contests in favor of Group races can be costly over the long term. Obviously, it is deeply satisfying, and financially rewarding, to pick the winner of a big race such as Durban July where this scribe hit on The Real Prince at 28/1.
That said, value picks emerge more often at the lower rungs of racing where less is known about the contestants, providing opportunities to those with sharp databases, or to well-primed shrewdies.
Ideally you want to be on the best horse/team/player, under the right circumstances and bet them when they are offered at good odds, relative to their chances. And those general wagering principles apply regardless of the level of competition.
This is a quiet time of transition in SA racing. The KZN season has ended; the Jozi Spring festivals are a couple months away and Cape Town is battling to stage regular meetings during a wet Winter.
Slinky Mapimpi (speed score 98) earned top marks at Turffontein on Saturday, having raced handy down the straight. Blizzard Snow (s/s 96) tried to close on the outer but fell short by.75 lengths with the veteran Rollwiththepunches (s/s 96) back in third.
Earlier on the card, Perfect Miracle (s/s 87 +) made a dominant debut over the same C/D and could be worth keeping tabs on.
Future Flo (s/s 96) garnered the top rating at Scottsville on Sunday. Soho Star and Maphaka with figs of 93 followed.
The better class horses in South Africa typically score at least 100 and above with the Group 1 stars exceeding 108’s. Nothing came anywhere close to that level over the weekend, but as indicated in the preamble, there is still money to be made finding nicely priced winners in the bread and butter, lower divisions. The dividends are just as fortifying!