Horse of the year - Is Irish Flame a cert ?

magiclips Wrote:

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> scotia Wrote:
>

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>

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> > The nominees for the 10 categories are:
> >
> > A 2-y-o filly
> >
> > 1 Chocolicious
> > 2 Happy Archer
> > 3 Mahbooba
> > 4 Waywest Goddess
> >
> > B 2-y-o colt
> >
> > 1 Copper Parade
> > 2 Gold Onyx
> > 3 Kavanagh
> > 4 Link Man
> >
> > C 3-y-o filly
> >
> > 1 Gibralter Blue
> > 2 Here To Win
> > 3 Imperious Star
> >
> > D 3-y-o colt
> >
> > 1 Ancestral Fore
> > 2 Bold Silvano
> > 3 Bravura
> > 4 Irish Flame
> > 5 Noordhoek Flier
> > 6 Orbison
> > 7 Pierre Jourdan
> >
> > E Older filly/mare
> >
> > 1 Captain’s Girl
> > 2 Mother Russia
> > 3 Noble Heir
> > 4 River Jetez
> >
> > F Older male
> >
> > 1 Big City Life
> > 2 JJ The Jet Plane
> > 3 Pocket Power
> > 4 Smart Banker
> >
> > G Sprinter
> >
> > 1 JJ The Jet Plane Absolute no-brainer,
> this.(
> > 2 Noble Heir
> >
> > H Middle-distance horse
> >
> > 1 Big City Life
> > 2 Bold Silvano
> > 3 Irish Flame
> > 4 Pierre Jourdan
> > 5 Pocket Power
> >
> > I Stayer
> >
> > 1 Ancestral Fore
> > 2 Irish Flame
> >
> > J Horse Of The Year?
> > Irish Flame
>
>
> Seeing as I'm not on the voting panel this year I
> might as well tell you how I would have done it.
> No being sworn to secrecy or any of that stuff.


Who decides the Jockey /trainer/sire awards?

Got an email yesterday with the following

Trainer: Mike de Kock
Jockey: Anton Marcus
Apprentice: Aldo Domeyer
Work rider: John Nel
Owner/s: Ingrid and Markus Jooste
Breeder: Summerhill Stud
Stallion: Jet Master

Those go automatically to the leader of each category. Nobody 'decides' them.

The format for the Equus Awards takes on a very different feel this year with the drama of the awards enhanced by being presented in a cinema environment to be followed by the Banquet. The Horse Of The Year award will be announced at the end of dinner by Racing South Africa Chairman, Mr Vidrik Thurling. Longstanding Chairman of the organizing committee, Mr Larry Wainstein, is confident guests will enjoy the changes and all is set for an evening of great celebration!



The voting panel consisted of Messrs Vee Moodley (Chairman), Patrick Davis, Graeme Hawkins, Robert Garner, Nico Kritsiotis, Jehan Malherbe, Sheldon Peters and Roger Smith.

scotia Wrote:

---

> The format for the Equus Awards takes on a very
> different feel this year with the drama of the
> awards enhanced by being presented in a cinema
> environment to be followed by the Banquet. The
> Horse Of The Year award will be announced at the
> end of dinner by Racing South Africa Chairman, Mr
> Vidrik Thurling. Longstanding Chairman of the
> organizing committee, Mr Larry Wainstein, is
> confident guests will enjoy the changes and all is
> set for an evening of great celebration!
>
>
>
> The voting panel consisted of Messrs Vee Moodley
> (Chairman), Patrick Davis, Graeme Hawkins, Robert
> Garner, Nico Kritsiotis, Jehan Malherbe, Sheldon
> Peters and Roger Smith.


no room for darryl maree karel miedema or mr mathew lipps on this panel.?

Equus Awards panel faces tough choices

DAVE MOLLETT - In my youth one of singer Dionne Warwick's big hits was ``Say A Little Prayer For Me’’ and that's exactly my feelings ahead of Thursday night's Equus awards banquet at Emperors Palace.

My prayer is that the voting panel won't come up with another dead-heat in the ``Horse-of-the-Year’’ category.



Four years ago we had a shared award and the fact the panel couldn't come up with a clear-cut winner was criticised by most pundits.



I have canvassed a number of experts regarding this year’s ``Horse-of-the-Year’’ award and the consensus is that it's a three-cornered contest between July winner Bold Silvano, dual Derby winner Irish Flame and sprinting star, J J the Jet Plane.



The July provided ample proof that we've got an exceptional crop of three year-olds, but I have my doubts that Bold Silvano's Greyville triumph will be sufficient to win his owners the award. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on the result of SA's most famous race and it's worth remembering the former PE star finished behind Orbison in the Gr 1 Champions Cup.



My view is that the seven-member panel faced a straight choice for the top award between Irish Flame and J J The Jet Plane. Irish Flame produced a performance in the Derby at Turffontein that was simply outstanding - similar to now-injured Harbinger's last win in the UK.



That he followed up with victories in the Daily News 2000 and Gold Circle Derby simply confirmed that he was getting better as he got older and - had he won the July - I doubt if the panel would have taken long reaching their decision.



But he didn't win the July - giving Bold Silvano half a kilo and going down by a length. This opened the door for JJ's supporters (of whom I am unashamedly one) who don’t need to call on McCoy (the star prosecutor in the TV show ``Law & Order’’) to present their case.



``JJ’’ was simply awesome in his two Gr 1 victories on his return here which is a feather in the cap for Lucky Houdalakis and will not have surprised Mike de Kock one iota. After all, our new champion trainer saddled him to run third in one of Europe's big sprints - the July Cup at Newmarket.



``JJ’’ ’s detractors argue that the South African sprinting cupboard is bare at present with both Computaform winner, Private Jet, and Warm White Night not firing in the latter part of the season. But ``JJ’’ could do no more than win and the form of his Mercury Sprint win was boosted when Gaultier (beaten over five lengths by JJ) carried 60 kg to victory in last Saturday's Umngeni Handicap at Clairwood.



Right now, the thoughts of ``JJ’’ ‘s connections are probably more on how they can overcome bureaucratic obstacles to get their star to Hong Kong for December’s R12 million Cathay Pacific Sprint rather on whether they'll win the ``Horse-of-the-Year’’ award.



To his credit, Racing South Africa’s Peter Gibson has gone in to bat for them and yesterday he told me that he felt the current Hong Kong government decision to make our horses do 60 days in quarantine in the UK (rather than the 30 agreed between countries last year) amounted to ``restraint of trade’’.



Gibson is hoping that Hong Kong Turf Club’s Mark Player can help in this regard, and we can only hope that we get to test our champion against the best Asia, Europe and Aussie have to offer in that rich contest in mid-December.



Another mighty interesting award tomorrow night is that of Champion Three Year-Old Colt/Gelding with an astonishing seven nominations in this category. Obviously, Irish Flame, Bold Silvano and Orbison are in this list, but so are two highly-rated Cape-based horses, Noordhoek Flyer and Bravura.



As the July got into people's thinking, popular Tellytrack presenter, Shaheen Shaw, first went for Bravura and - when word got out that all was not right with Joey Ramsden's horse - switched to Noordhoek Flyer. That also ended up the ``kiss-of-death’’ with Dean Kannemeyer’s choicely-bred colt not going the right way during his KZN campaign.



I don't know what Shaheen finally tipped for the July, but I’m sure Mike de Kock was keeping his fingers crossed it wasn't one of his ``magnificent seven’’!



Although we were all delighted at Pierre Jourdan's exploits early in the season, his fan club was brought down to earth by Irish Flame in the Derby and the panel can't go for him nor Bravura or Noordhoek Flyer.



Another nominee, Ancestral Fore, ran the race of his life to win the earlier-run Gold Cup in mid-June, but he failed to feature in the July so will also be passed over. No, it's a straight fight between Irish Flame and Bold Silvano unless the panel consider Gr 1 winner Orbison's July chance was affected (which it certainly was) by a shocking draw.



* * *



The Emperors Palace National Two Year-Old Sale takes place over three days this weekend (6pm kick-off on Friday and Saturday and 11am on Sunday) and there are several July-related youngsters in the 476-strong catalogue.



Captain Al finished in third place in the sires list (by stakes) last season and he's represented by a colt whose dam is a half-sister to Clock The Rock who produced July second and "Horse-of-the-Year" candidate, Irish Flame.



Scott Bros are certain to be frequently opening the stable door of Orbison's half-brother who is by the Sadlers Well stallion, Hinton Wells. The same stud has a superbly-named filly by Miesque's Approval called "Don't Tell Mama".



Wilgerbosdrift will be offering a half-brother (by Not For Sale, sire of Asiatic Boy) to July fifth Happy Valley, and another well-named youngster is the Kabool filly out of Pin Number who is a full-sister to July fourth, Service Ace. She's called "Password Protected". Amazing, at last our breeders are coming up with decent names.

Well tonights the night and the winner is.................................................................?

JJ Got older male,pic sent tlive from the awards by Possum/Tracey

Congrats to the connections

Well done to JJ for 2 awards and Irish Flame for Horse of the Year.
Glad Hear the Drums also had an award.

Who's the ice cream man ?

Mr Whippy?

Nice Lucky and partners.Well achieved award.

What about Northern Guest did he not get an award?