By The Centaurian

My Pure Maths analysis of the Gold Cup Sprint at Borrowdale Park on Sunday was not too bad suggesting as it did Silver Coin and Coachella should be in the shake-up – but no mention was made of the actual winner Verdier.

This is because on the information to hand, there was no maths to be worked out. Here we had a 1200 metre race and between May and Sunday, the winner had never run over 1200 metres – only 1800 to 2000 metres. 

Moreover, Verdier hadn’t set the world alight as a stayer – 11.5 lengths off Peggson in the Tankard for example. How could it be considered a prospect? On top of all that it was 4kg out of the handicap. In other words with an index of 78 it should have been carrying 15 kg less, not 11 kg less than Coachella whose index was 108. In my book that is prejudice of 8 lengths to Verdier.

Coachella ran a blinder for John Koumides – who deserves every success – top man. But Coachella was found wanting even if only by a couple of pixels and thus tends to confirm my belief that a kilo of pudding above 60kg stops horses more than a kilo below 60kg.

So for me it was a curious result – someone tell me why Verdier could have won that race? But hearty congratulations to the connections – and what a finish it was.

PS By way of poste scriptum, what the hell were FastJet doing not putting the jockey’s kit on the plane from Joburg? –  and what lessons might be learned for the future?  I applaud MTC and MOTA for “making a plan” and suspect their efforts were not quite as well received as they should have been – you have my admiration. Well done.

Photographs by Jenny Stock : Verdier, winner of the 2019 SKM Gold Cup Sprint (GR3), trained by Gokhan Terzi and with Brendon McNaughton in the irons. The six-year-old son of Var (USA) is owned by Messrs G I Bluett, B M McClauchlan, A C Fisher, K H Fisher, G Goksel and Mesdams V Birketoft,  A K Fisher,B P Fisher and N J Fisher.  Congratulations to all the winning connections.