Alec Hogg's heart is with Ferraris' orphan, but logic points to the Kiwi Superstar.

A lad from Omaha who became the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett, made a few dollars with Stable Boy Selections, a typewritten tip sheet which rated runners at his local Ak-Sar-Ben racecourse. Buffett's genius, even then, was being able to calculate relative risk by eliminating emotion.

Apply Buffett-type logic to Saturday's R2m Sansui Summer Cup, and those 22/10 odds offered by bookmakers on the favourite, imported superstar Oracy, looks as juicy as dripping on the Sunday roast. At these odds, the turf accountants predict the unbeaten colt has only a 30% chance of beating his 17 competitors. Logic suggests his chance is at least 50% (so the odds should be even money at best).

But this is racing and no matter how obvious things appear on paper, these athletes compete on grass. Much can and often does happen to upset the best thought-out plans.

From what we've seen of him in his five starts to date, Oracy is the Ian Thorpe (or Usain Bolt if you prefer). He's been to the races five times. Only when running in the slop of the R1m Gauteng Guineas was he really tested - and that day his guts prevailed.  Whenever the surface has been half decent, the New Zealand-bred colt has dispatched his opponents with ease.

Oracy has been specially prepared for Saturday's race and has about as much going for him as any favourite of a major event could hope for. He jumps from a favourable barrier draw at number 5, worth a couple of lengths in a big field; and although it will be the first time he runs in a race beyond 1600m, he is bred to be even better over this 2000m. As you might expect of a colt who cost R2.7m as a yearling, Oracy oozes class; he possesses a regal pedigree (son of leading global stallion Zabeel) and hails from the in-form stable of SA's Champion Trainer Charles Laird. Put together this makes him as close to a racing certainty as you'll find in a big event like this.  

But that's why it's called a racing certainty - because in this sport where an accidental bump or a few centimetres at the winning post can turn triumph into despair, nothing is ever certain. Which goes part of the way to explaining why the bookmakers are seemingly offering an early Xmas present.

The other part of the explanation comes from Oracy's jockey Anton Marcus who has ridden him in all but one of his victories. Marcus, a globetrotting Champion who prefers the local lifestyle, is only cautiously optimistic: "Don't get me wrong, I'm not seeing any glasses half empty. But in handicaps like the Summer Cup, it's often not the best horse that wins. Usually the best weighted horse does."

As Marcus points out, and as any student of racing form would confirm, although Oracy is the best horse in the field, in theory at least he's certainly not the best weighted.

The objective in a handicap is to allocate weight in line with each horse's ability in such a way that they all have an equal chance of winning. Much like in golf where a weekend enthusiast like me can be competitive against a genius like Ernie Els because he is forced to give me a 14 shot start.

Over centuries of racing, handicappers have discovered that as a rough rule, each extra kilogram under the saddle slows a runner down by one horse's length in a race over a mile (1600m). So with the Sansui Summer Cup over 2000m, so each 1kg of additional weight translates into a disadvantage of 1.25 horse lengths.

Anton Marcus and the extra lead weights allocated by the handicapper means Oracy will have tom lug 58kg around the 2000m of the tough Turffontein track on Saturday. Marcus warns that another of the five Laird yard runners in the field, the talented Rudi Rocks, only carries 52.5kg. That five and a half extra kilos less than Oracy. Put differently, Rudi Rocks is being given a seven-length start.

Last time the raced against each other was on October 20^th. In that heat Oracy proved to be slightly more than five lengths superior to Rudi Rocks. So, unless the Kiwi import has improved, he's going to struggle to beat his stablemate when giving him that seven-length advantage.

More often than not, such form-based calculations work out. But what keeps punters from following the logic are the twin variables of emotion and judgment. Emotion could be based simply on a "feeling" for a saddlecloth number; an affinity for the horse, jockey or trainer; or simply a desire to see the underdog prevail. Judgment takes in the unknowns like the way each horse will handle a different distance; their ability to perform just as well under more weight; or the way a different jockey would suit the runner.

Particularly confusing for Oracy's connections - including his billionaire owner, JSE-listed Steinhoff's CEO Markus Jooste - is the colt's absolute refusal to offer any hint of his ability during his home gallops.

It's unusual, though not rare for a top racehorse to save everything he has for the race day. The great sprinter Senor Santa, who swept all before him in SA, was one of many examples. But Anton Marcus tells me of all the top horses he's ridden, none have been quite so bad a worker as Oracy: "He gives absolutely nothing away at home. On his work you'd swear he couldn't beat anything. But he shows us every time we get to the races he knows this business is about, so we trust him now." Still, you get the feeling although Marcus knows his horse's habits, he'd be a lot more confident if Oracy would show just a glimpse of ability before race day.

Apart from Rudi Rocks, Anton Marcus gives a chance to Felix Coetzee's mount Aslan and his pal Johnny Geroudis's ride Captain Scott. The hugely talented Geroudis tells me he makes his grey horse a "big runner". But both he and Marcus rates Ormond Ferraris's Magical as the horse they'll have to beat. Apart from the wonderful name, his unusual story is sure to make Magical the sentimental favourite.

That this tough gelding is so feared by the opposition despite only having won three of his 10 starts, is a sign of the professionals respect  for the 77 year old master trainer who tells me he specifically missed the lucrative KZN Winter season - and even a tilt at the Durban July - to aim his stable's star for Saturday's race. The actual preparation, though, started more than two years ago.

Ferraris says he identified Magical's father, ill-fated Labeeb, as a potential Champion sire when he saw him at Summerhill Stud shortly after the imposing stallion arrived from America: "I liked Labeeb's racing record, the way he was put together especially his good legs, and his pedigree. I sent my only mare, Nettle, to be covered by him - they produced Opera Cloak who has won three races. Not bad for a first foal."

So when Ferraris spotted a son of Labeeb on a Durban sale where only 64 yearlings were catalogued, he decided to take a closer look. Magical's breeder Rodney Clarkin, himself a renown horseman, remembers Ferraris being taken by the big colt the moment he saw him: "This wasn't surprising, Magical was outstanding from day one." 

Magical was knocked down to Ferraris for R130 000, a bargain in anyone's language. Although it now looks as though he sold the horse too cheaply, Clarkin has no regrets: "I couldn't have asked for him to be with a better trainer. Ormond has planned this campaign to a tee. Speak to some of the old timers and they'll tell you Magical has been given a mighty fine programme going into the race, a preparation second to none."

As a participant in the KZN Breeder's Premiums programme, Clarkin has a vested interest in pulling for Ferraris's horse. Unfortunately that's his only economic interest as Magical's mother, the Foveros mare Bite Your Tongue, died shortly after producing her last foal, a filly by Muhtafal, which Clarkin sold for R120 000. The rationale behind pairing his mare with Labeeb? Clarkin admits: "It was just one of those lucky matings. I was looking for size as she was a smallish, squat mare and Labeeb was a big, imposing horse. Pedigree-wise it was an outcross; you have to go back five generations to find a common ancestor in Nasrullah."

As Magical and other sons and daughters have shown, had he lived, Labeeb may well have proved Ferraris's view that he was a Champion in the making. Summerhill's stud master Greig Muir, who worked closely with Magical's father during his two seasons at stud,  describes his premature death as "desperate......his stats are very good and his youngsters are really tough."

Even the way Labeeb left the earth was dramatic.

Muir tells: "We'd walked Labeeb and the other stallions up to the top of the hill for a photo shoot and all was normal until shortly after we started coming home. Labeeb must have had an aneurism in the brain. For apparently no reason he started attacking his handler; I went to help and he picked me up and threw me over a fence - surgery was later needed to repair the damage. With me over the hedge he turned on his handler again and was about to give him the deathblow when Labeeb suddenly fell dead to the ground.

"Labeeb was a character, tough as nails .... a Bakkies Botha of the racing world..... he took on some of the best that America had to offer and beat them.  When one walks into the office at Shadwell America in Kentucky, there is a large glass cabinet with silverware mostly attributed to the performances of Labeeb (he won 8 of 19 starts including two Gr1 races on American turf). US racing pundit and international stallion authority Bill Oppenheim, rated Labeeb as one of the most influential and high potential sires to come into South Africa in the last decade and he wasn't far wrong. From a limited stud career in South Africa during which time he produced only two crops (2004 - 2006 he died just prior to the breeding season in 06) he became a Freshman Sire sensation. He lies today in "the Avenue" here at Summerhill amongst fellow past inmates like Rambo Dancer, Northern Guest and Coastal. Don't worry, we still salute him when we go past and we still get goose pimples when we think what might have been."

So with both his father and mother having passed on, Magical is what we humans would call an orphan. But he doesn't now that. Neither is he aware that the most dangerous of Saturday's opponents cost 20 times more than him when they were sold on auction as yearlings. His trainer and part owner Ferraris dismisses the suggestion that it's a two horse race - he also has great respect for yet another Laird-inmate, Eight Street, a gelded son of the international super stallion Street Cry. But for those with a sense of history - and the bookmakers - this looks too much like a replay of the 1930s duels between War Admiral and Seabiscuit to consider other contenders too seriously.

In his gifted pilot Piere "Striker" Strydom, the Ferraris-trained gelding has one of the best riders in the world on board. He will carry 54kg against their 58kg so in effect has been given a five length start by both Oracy and Eight Street. Against this, Magical jumps from a wide gate (14), a particular concern for both Ferraris and Strydom.

The master trainer rates the poor draw as "my biggest worry". Strydom frets that his mount is a slow starter who lacks "gate speed" so the poor draw might be force them to sit a lot further back in the early running than the pilot would like. Strydom says even without this disadvantage Oracy "will be a tough nut to crack - we're a bit better off at the weights with Oracy than the last time we met, but he won so easily that you can't be sure how much he still had in the tank."

Strydom, an astute judge, believes his horse's chances will be affected by the pace of the race. The ideal, he says, would be one where the field "goes like the clappers" so that he can place Magical around six lengths behind the leader coming into the business end: "Then we must hope that Oracy doesn't stay the distance and we fly past him near the finish."

For his part, Anton Marcus is certain that Oracy will still be going strong at the end of the 2000m and that a fast pace would also be in his favour. His trainer Charles Laird's probable tactic will be to ask one of his five entrants to guarantee there's a proper pace - ensuring the race doesn't become a R2m lottery which would happen if the field is allowed to crawl around the course and turn the event into a sprint down the straight.

A decent pace combined with the ever fair Turffontein stand side course promises to make this a contest every racing enthusiast will savour long after commentator Clyde Basel has run out of puff. My money will be with Magical. Even though Warren Buffett would definitely not approve. - alec@moneyweb.co.za

* Alec Hogg is the founder and editor in chief of Moneyweb Holdings. He has raced since 1986 and dreams of one day having a runner in the Summer Cup. Preferably one bred on his recently acquired farm near Mooi River in the KZN Midlands.

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