Gold Circle Publishing’s Devonne Govender stormed clear with top honours and cash awards of R500 and R2500 after the end of the first week of the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge Racing Stars when he topped the daily and weekly leaderboard after the Hollywoodbets Scottsville racemeeting on Sunday.
Devonne found 6 of the 9 winners on the day and finished with a proverbial rattle to beat 4Racing commentator Brandon Bailey and Gold Circle journalist, David Thiselton.
The Racing Stars competition is hosted within the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge platform for South Africa’s racing presenters, personalities, commentators and journalists pits the faces and voices of racing against each other, competing in every South African race meeting, covering KZN, Western Cape, Gauteng, and Eastern Cape. For regular players the Racing Stars are also in position on the daily leaderboard – so it’s a chance for every punter countrywide to pit their individual skills against the professionals!
For the 30 days of April, there is R27 000 up for grabs, with a R500 daily Racing Stars winner takes-it-all prize for each race meeting.
Devonne Govender won Sunday’s daily prize and became the first winner of the R2500 in prize money for the weekly Racing Stars competition.
Dual winner Gary Lemke banked the R500 awarded to the player with the most winners (28) for the week.
Click here to see the daily top 10 and weekly top 10 leaderboard!
The multi-faceted international horseracing exposure enjoyed by Devonne Govender, who besides his form study and selection commitments with the KZN racing operator’s publishing department, also doubles as a commentator on Mauritius horseracing and a Gallop TV presenter, has stood him in good stead.
Racing Stars week 1 winner Devonne Govender
“I am fortunate to be able to study the form well in advance of the meetings in the course of my work, and am really enjoying the spirit of the Racing Stars competition and the interaction. We all have our own systems and approach to our selections, and when I find a ‘box-ticker’, I get excited. Thanks to Hollywoodbets for the wonderful concept and to all my colleagues for participating with such enthusiasm,” added Devonne, who was one of the original harness racing jockeys when an attempt was made to get that sport off the ground out here.
Earlier, his father had landed a contract in New Zealand as a Telecommunications Engineer. The family lived next to a harness racing track and there were televised harness race meetings in New Zealand everyday.
After passing the selection tests to be a harness racing driver, he was enrolled in the South African Jockeys Academy (SAJA) in order to learn stable management and other equine skills.
It was here that his aptitude for commentating became apparent.
Devonne’s time in the Academy coincided with Keagan de Melo, JP van der Merwe, Donovan Dillon, Ant Mgudlwa, Hennie Greyling, Teaque Gould, Julius Mariba, Jarryd Penny, Vikram Sola and Jaswick Jordaan and he built many good friendships.
Devonne spent a year at Summerveld working with the Summerveld based harness horses. He drove in four of the KZN Premier’s First Harness Challenge series of races.
In conjunction with SAJA, he was then offered an opportunity to do a year of training in Australia to obtain his international racing licence – which he still holds. He was based at Byford Harness Racing Complex, a premier Harness training facility in Western Australia.
Devonne also spent approximately six months with Aldo Cortopassi Pacing Stables. During this time he performed the duties of a stable hand and track work driver and was involved in all aspects of general stable duties, including stable management and daily routines.
As history will tell, harness racing never got off the ground here and Devonne landed a position in the National Racing Bureau. He later joined the Gold Circle Publishing Team.
On Monday, we continue at Hollywoodbets Greyville with a seven race card. The first is off at 12h35.
South Africa’s most popular racing competition pits the skills, wits and form assessment knowledge of players against each other over the designated racemeeting, with the leaderboard being updated after each race.
Players select one horse per race in the free-to-enter challenge and points are allocated for the finishing position, with an additional weighting for a winner based on the Hollywoodbets starting price.
Recently extended to include all local racemeetings, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, the Hollywoodbets Punters’ Challenge has created a host of big winners and continues at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Monday.
The game is simple and FREE to play. So take up the challenge and take on the stars today!
All you need to do is login to the Hollywoodbets Punters Challenge website with your Hollywoodbets account.
Pick one horse for each of the races, and click submit.
