The first Saturday in July is always one of my favourites of the year with the running of the Vodacom Durban July and also the start of the Tour de France.

Let’s start with the Horse Racing where Mike de Kock trained Hawwaam is currently the 22/10 favourite ahead of last year’s winner, Do It Again from the Snaith stable.  This is by all accounts one of the strongest fields ever for a July and the third favourite, Rainbow Bridge is priced at 7/1 alongside Barahin and you can get 12/1 and better the field. 

With only the Super Rugby final taking place this weekend, Saturday afternoon is threatening to be a bit more boring than usual.  Good news though is that the Tour de France gets underway and while Saturday’s first stage looks likely to end in a sprint finish, the route itself offers plenty of drama in what should be a very exciting three weeks.

The unfortunate injury to Chris Froome has opened this race up quite a bit although it is a sign of the strength of Team INEOS (previously Team Sky) that they still have the 2 favourites in the race being Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas. 

It is not often that we get a long price winner of the Tour de France, but this is a year I do feel that some of the runners around the 15/1 to 20/1 mark have genuine claims.  Thibaut Pinot once the great French hope has not ridden this race competitively for some time, but he comes into it in good form and having overcome his descending fears.  He is priced at 20/1 and will have his supporters as will his fellow Frenchman, Romain Bardet at 28/1.  A Frenchman hasn’t won this race since 1985 and the locals really do believe it is now or never.

My fancy this year is Movistar’s Nairo Quintana who is priced at 18/1.  Much has been expected of Quintana over the years and he has never quite delivered against the likes of Froome, but he is a Grand Tour winner and he has shown some reasonable form this year.  I think this route is well suited to him with plenty of high climbs and with a strong team around him I think that he offers value at 18/1.

Look out for our TDF and July previews on You Tube

Twitter: @BrentGraham

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 4 July 2019.

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