This week’s story is based on an interesting quote taken out of Sporting Post after Monday’s Fairview meeting, which stated, “A review of our records indicates that Blizzard Belle’s (admittedly wind assisted) time of 54.55 secs is the fastest ever run by a racehorse in South Africa over the turf 1000m in the modern era and breaks Mythical Flight’s time of 54.96 secs set at Turffontein on 5 May 2007 in the Gr1 Computer form Sprint.”
Accurate speed figures always take the condition of the track into account, together with the prevailing weather. On Monday, the Fairview surface was running quick which, combined with a fierce tailwind, saw some exceptionally fast raw times being recorded by even ordinary performers. When a juvenile (Zevenastic) and a regular PE maiden (Speed Lightning) with a lowly merit rating of 68 are finishing 1000m races in 56.3 and 55.4 seconds respectively, then you must know that the circumstances are aberrant. So, to get a proper fix on Blizzard Belle’s effort, the final time had to be adjusted based on that very fast track variant to place her performance in proper context.
After crunching the numbers, the Western Winter mare received a speed figure of 99, which is 3 points shy of her career best of 102 recorded on the Poly in June. She has done very well since moving from KZN and was recording her fourth win in succession under jock S’manga Khumalo. Blizzard Belle has now won seven out of 20 starts and is as effective on turf as the Polymer.
As a historical curiosity, Mythical Flight was a genuinely top class sprinter, who ran scores around 114 when cleaning up in Grade 1 sprints nearly a decade ago. He was trained by current champion conditioner Sean Tarry, and won eight of his first ten starts before going into decline.