Vodacom Durban July winner The Conglomerate has been eased from 16-1 to 20-1 for Saturday week’s Sun Met despite being ridden by Frankie Dettori.

Betting World has made surprisingly few changes to its prices considering it had a book of 23 horses on Monday morning and there are now just 15 runners. There were 14 in each of the last two years and in 2007 when Pocket Power chalked up the first of his three wins. Other than that 15 is the smallest for a Met field in the last 25 years.

Legal Eagle remains 6-4 favourite and Whisky Baron is also unchanged at 9-2 but Marinaresco has been cut from 7-2 to 5-2. That said, fourth favourite  Bela-Bela has taken a walk from 13-2 to 9-1. Other prices are 11-1 Gold Standard, 14-1 It’s My Turn,20-1 Captain America, 40-1 Mac De Lago, French Navy, Brazuca, 66-1 Baritone, 100-1 Cape Speed, Mambo Mime and Macduff.

The eight who were not declared were the Mike De Kock trio Bold Rex, Heavenly Blue and Al Fahad, the Geoff Woodruff pair Master Sabina and Deo Juvente, St Tropez (Joey Ramsden), Nebula (Brett Crawford) and Rocketball (Gavin van Zyl).

Michael Clower