David Thiselton

THE lack of a KZN Vodacom Durban July contender was lamented when the betting first came out but that all changed at Hollywoodbets Greyville today when the Gareth van Zyl-trained She’s A Keeper powered home in the Grade 2 World Sports Betting 1900 under Warren Kennedy.

The four-year-old Gimmethegreenlight filly was admittedly carrying only 50kg and beat two rank outsiders in Matterhorn and Shavout but the conditions of the Vodacom Durban July state that the winner of the WSB 1900 is given “preferential consideration for inclusion in the final field”.

Under the conditions of the WSB 1900 the winner can only be raised six points, which means she will go up to a 96 and as things stand will be a whopping 11kg under sufferance in the big race.

However, the handicappers have had their hands tied by conditions and guidelines for just about everyone of her five wins and she proved today she is a lot better than her rating.

She was officially 4kg under sufferance with the two best weighted horses in today’s race, Trip To Africa and Doublemint, and beat them by 5,50 and 9,15 lengths respectively, and she was 2,5kg under sufferance with her chief market rival, fourth-placed Crown Towers, and beat him by 4,60 lengths.

Kennedy dropped She’s A Keeper out from a wide draw and took her to the rail.

Crown Towers enjoys striding out either in front or behind a strong pacemaker but his chances of doing either were scuppered by Shareholder on his inside rushing to the front and then slowing it up.

Crown Towers eventually ended up in behind Blackball, who had come around to sit on the flank of Shareholder, but he had not been able to use his big stride to stretch the field so could only plug on for fourth.

Meanwhile, She’s A Keeper, who was second last of the horses on the rail, used her terrific turn of foot at the top of the straight and burst through the centre to strike the front at the 300m mark.

She appears to have two similarities to her paternal half-brother Got The Greenlight, that terrific turn of foot being the first of them, and, like him, she seems to take her foot off the pedal once she has hit the front. She won more easily than the 0,90 length margin suggests as she was running around a bit in the closing stages, which was what she had also done when winning the Listed WSB Scarlet Lady over 1750m in her previous start.

Nevertheless, Matterhorn, who ran on from last down the inside, and Shavout, who ran on from off the pace down the outside, will be warm orders in their next respective handicap starts, having given the winner 4kg and 2kg respectively and being beaten just 0,90 and 1,70 lengths.

She’s A Keeper was bred and is owned by the Missing U Syndicate, whose nominee is the pedigree guru Rob Knuppe, and his partner in the syndicate is Jonathan Connellan.

Gareth van Zyl, whose young career already includes a win in Durban’s second most famous race, The WSB Gold Cup, can now look forward to his first runner in the Vodacom Durban July. This is some feat considering She’s A Keeper only made her debut in mid-December this season.

Earlier, She’s A Keeper’s Scarlet Lady form was franked when the third and second horses, the Wendy Whitehead-trained Keep On Dancing and the Vaughan Marshall-trained Scented Mistress, finished first and second respectively in the Listed KRA East Coast Cup over 2000m. Kennedy also rode the winner in that race.

Vodacom Durban July champion Do It Again had put in a good pipe-opening run in the previous race when just getting up to win a Pinnacle Stakes event over 1600m under Richard Fourie.