Lucky Lad was not so lucky with the draw at Greyville, which has essentially made the Mercury Sprint, a WFA Grade, a bit of a lottery in recent years from the days when the best sprinters almost always won it at Clairwood Park.

The race record at that venue was held by the great J J The Jet Plane and race was moved to Greyville following the close of Clairwood.

Favourite Lucky Lad was drawn out in 13 and no horse has won the race at Greyville from a wide draw. We covered this in detail in a previous article.

This time around the draw did really cost the running on Lucky Lad and prevented him from solidifying his place as the best sprinter in South Africa.

The running lines tell us that he was atleast 1.9 lengths superior to the winner who was more optimally drawn. He was equally ahead of the third placed horse, Royal Aussie, by almost the same margin. In fact he had the least optimal run to the line in the field and still managed a close second. Besides being ahead of the winner he was lengths better than any other horse in the field outside of the raw result.

That alone, shows us what a torrid run he had besides the fact that he copped interference with Sun Blushed in the straight as well, causing both to be unbalanced at a crucial stage.

The winner, Surjay, won by 0.7 of a length which means that from a better draw, that distance would have been easily overcome. It Again highlights the draw bias of Greyville and the difficulty faced by organizers in attempting to find the best WFA Sprinter during their winter season. The Mercury Sprint used to be the foremost Sprint race in the country, especially the 1200m variety but it may soon lose that title in finding the best of the best.

Lucky Lad, not so lucky this time, but no doubt the best run gun to tape from the worst draw possible.