The Cape Racing Festival Sales Day, a high value racemeeting that will offer bumper stakes racing from R6,5 million up to R10 million over the initial three years, and encompass the age spectrum, will dovetail the brand new CRS March Premier Sale, creating a racing and sales festival like no other in South Africa.

The festival will extend the bumper Cape Summer Season Of Champions, creating an eighth festival racemeeting in what is a celebration of close on five months of non-stop high quality horseracing in the fairest Cape in all the world.

The innovative Cape Racing Sales team have again raised the bar in an industry showing exponential growth in the post-covid era. The recent ground-breaking announcement of a March Premier sale to be added to the CRS sales calendar has generated plenty of excitement following the opening of entries for their 2025 premier sales.

Making the announcement earlier this week, Cape Racing Executive: Racing & Bloodstock Justin Vermaak explained that, from a CRS perspective, the new festival gives prospective buyers another great reason to buy a CRS graduate.

“Knowing that your purchase will potentially be able to participate in a R3 million race as a juvenile, and then have a R5 million race available every season, is quite something. Having R10 million on offer across four individual races is unlike any sales race incentive structure we have ever seen in South Africa. It creates an exceptional race day to follow what will be a memorable auction the day before,” enthused the racing administrator.

Looking at the three features individually, one notes that all ages and sexes are catered for.

The R5 million CRS Big Cap is the exciting new ‘slot’ race which will headline the Festival race day.

The Big Cap was modelled on the Everest concept introduced in Australia, and the concept has been featured successfully previously in South Africa as the ‘Gold Rush’.

Justin Vermaak explained that the CRS Big Cap will be run as a handicap, with conditions.

“The large spread at the weights will ensure that a vast group of graduates come into the race with a chance. The Gold Rush was a success in general, and it only fell slightly short in that if you were not a slot holder of a top candidate, the race became impossible to win. With The Big Cap offering a more extended spread, it creates a more level playing field, as handicap racing is intended to do. At only R325 000 a slot, it opens up a broader list of potential slot owners, and in keeping with our philosophy of acknowledging a very important sector of the horseracing eco-system, the groom of each runner will receive a payment of R12 500.”

The inaugural running of the R5 million CRS Big Cap in 2025 will be contested over 1400m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth and is open to all CRS sales graduates.

This will come as good news for the purchasers of the October 2022 CRS Ready To Run Sale graduates, who are eligible for the first running of this headline race, as well as being something of an unexpected big bonus for all CRS buyers at sales in 2023 and 2024 who made their purchases unaware of the bonanza of the R5 million CRS Big Cap!

In the short term, there is also going to be substantially enhanced interest for vendors and buyers at the CRS Breeze Up & 2YO Unbroken Sale to be held at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on 27 October. The graduates of this sale will be potential qualifiers for a run in the R5 million CRS Big Cap as 3yo’s.

The R3 million CRS Slipper will be run over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth in 2026.

This means that next year’s CRS graduates will run for the highest stake on offer for a juvenile race in South Africa. The CRS Slipper will be open to all graduates of CRS auctions in 2025, not just the January auction, as was the case before.

The R1 million CRS Sprint and R1 million CRS Mile will be run for three-year-olds only. This means that graduates of CRS auctions in 2025 can run for R3 million in the Slipper as juveniles, and then return to take their chance in the CRS Sprint or CRS Mile at three.

“From a Cape Racing perspective, having such a diverse and highly incentivised race day perfectly extends our racing season. We have always felt that our Summer season ends a touch prematurely. This race day enables us to extend the season a few weeks and incorporate the new day into our Festival programme, creating an eighth Festival meeting for the Summer. The races on offer also give another option to the top-level athletes that may be short of options after the WSB Cape Town Met and Splashout Cape Derby meetings,” added Vermaak.

He also pointed out that with these new races available for graduates, and the CRS Juvenile Bonus still in play, there is really no better place to buy a horse than at a Cape Racing Sales auction.

“We look forward to hosting two high-quality sales at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth in January and March. We have opened entries for both sales simultaneously and will work with vendors to spread the appropriate horses across both sales. The aim of The Summer Sale is to host a high-end boutique auction that is populated with forward and well-grown yearlings. The Premier Sale in March will host a broader and a much larger draft. Initial talks with vendors have been promising, with particular excitement around the format and structure of the sales venue, as we build toward a more permanent solution into the latter part of 2025.”

Plans are advanced to develop an international quality state-of-the-art sales venue on the historic Hollywoodbets Kenilworth Racecourse property.

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