At first glance there doesn’t seem much more to say other than ‘back the bridge!’ in the prestigious weight-for-age mile and the joint second richest graded race on the African continent.
Remenber how RAINBOW BRIDGE won the Hollywoodbets Gr1 Gold Challenge last year: After running third behind subsequent Vodacom Durban July winner DO IT AGAIN, this will be the third consecutive year that the son of IDEAL WORLD will line up in the final July ‘golden ticket’ event and all the indicators suggest that 8/10 is generous.
And it’s not that the handsome gelding has no competition. Quite the opposite in fact!
Saturday’s field was loaded with horses who have plundered graded races, including the current L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate champion, JET DARK and defending Vodacom Durban July winner, BELGARION.
An anomaly in the glittering career of the Eric Sands-trained RAINBOW BRIDGE is that he has never won an Equus Award but he likely secured the Equus Champion Miler award on Saturday when winning the Grade 1 weight for age Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge and he should be considered favourite for the Horse Of The Year award.
Last year's Equus Horse Of The Year award was characterised by the lack of suitable candidates but this year's award is the opposite, there are too many candidates.
To date there are six horses who have each won two Grade 1s this season, RAINBOW BRIDGE, GOT THE GREENLIGHT, LINEBACKER, WAR OF ATHENA, MALMOOS and CAPTAIN'S RANSOM.
However RAINBOW BRIDGE won the most prestigious weight for age middle distance race in the country, the Cape Town Met, finished a narrow second in what many regard as the most prestigious weight for age race in the country, the L'Ormarins Queen's Plate, yesterday he won what was calculated to be South Africa's highest rated race of the 2019/2020 season by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) and he has also won a Grade 2 and finished a narrow second in another Grade 2.