The Summer Cup is one of four Horse Races I get excited for each year with the others being the Durban July, J & B Met and Queens Plate.

It takes place this Saturday at Turffontein over 2000 meters and a large, high quality field has been assembled. Top of the betting boards is the Mike de Kock trained Soqrat currently priced at 7/2 alongside stable companion Barahin and to say Mike de Kock has a strong hand in this race would be an understatement as he has 5 of the Top 6 in the betting.

It is the third of the de Kock runners, Queen Supreme which has attracted attention in the Goodforthegame Forum where Southpaw, who has developed a reputation for tipping long price feature race winners, came in a couple of weeks ago saying that Queen Supreme was value at 12/1. That early call proved spot on as the price has now halved to 6/1 but that won’t put me off having a go on Saturday. After something of a challenging betting run in the European rugby over the past 2 weeks a 6/1 winner could certainly plug a few holes.

World Sports Betting have priced up on a number of Summer Cup Specials such as the winning margin where you can get 15/20 it will be under one length, 11/10 over a length and 16/1 exactly a length. They have also priced up on the winning sex where the Colts are 19/20, Geldings 12/10 and a Filly or Mare winner 28/10.

Mike de Kock is not surprisingly short at 7/20 to be the winning trainer and they have even priced up on which horse would run last with Insignis, Shenanigans and Sunshine Silk disputing “favouritism” here at 7/2.

While the Summer Cup is the day’s highlight there is plenty of quality racing including the WSB Ipi Tombe Stakes which is the race straight after the Summer Cup. Vistula is the current favourite at 22/10, but I like the chances of Wisteria Walk trained by Lucky Houdalakis at a current price of 9/1.

I am looking forward to a change of pace this weekend and will take a Jackpot and Pick Six at Turffontein although my main interest will be on the Queen and let’s hope that she reigns Supreme.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 28 November 2019.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register