The 1992 Schweppes Day, the equivalent of Saturday’s Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge raceday, was Ladies Day at Clairwood.
The yearly race for jockeys of the ‘weaker sex’ was won by Gail Uppink who made all the running on Bateleur, virtually without moving a muscle.
Chris and Sue Snaith lead Flaming Rock (Karl Neisius) in after his 1992 Schweppes Challenge victory (Pic – Supplied)
Flaming Rock came in a couple of points in the betting for the Rothmans July after he won the Gr1 Schweppes Challenge, the ultimate test for milers during the Natal season.
Flaming Rock beat Spanish Galliard by a neck in the weight-for-age event, his jockey Karl Neisius stating that he wasn’t quite at his peak yet. This was the midpoint of Flaming Rock’s three Schweppes Challenge winning streak from ’91 to ’93.
Have a look at the 1991 Schweppes Challenge replay by clicking here.
Interestingly, fast forward 29 years and Gold Circle reported that Justin Snaith felt that the date on which the weights were set for the then Vodacom Durban July needed to be revisited.
Snaith said that the Gr1 weight-for-age Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge was losing a little of its glitz because a lot of horses were just using it as a preparation and other horses were not running in order to protect their merit rating for the Durban July.
“In the past the Gold Challenge result had no effect on the July weights. An example was Flaming Rock, who won the Challenge (he won the Schweppes Challenge on June 15, three weeks before the July) and was still able to get into the July carrying 52.5kg. I realise this point is debatable because it could make a certain horse a shoe-in at the weights in the July. However, being a racing purist I regard the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate as by far the superior Grade 1 weight-for-age mile in the country because everybody goes for it, they don’t go in using it as a prep, and the winner is usually fancied to go on and win the Met. On the other hand I don’t run my well weighted July runners in the Gold Challenge, or at least I have to choose which of the two races to target.”
The Hollywoodbets Durban July weights will be published after final supplementary entries which close at 11h00 on Tuesday, 17 June.
Food for thought?
