It wasn’t quite Friday 13th, but Greyville’s 12 December night meeting has got to go down as one of the most bedevilled comedy of errors yet experienced by anybody remotely anticipating an evening of racing entertainment.
The irony is that some things in life are uncontrollable – and just maybe nobody is to blame.
But in the absence of any spin or feedback, right now we are left with more questions than answers.
Are there not contingencies that can be put in place to accomodate the unforseen?
This is after all, a multi million rand industry, not a church fete.
“One gets the feeling that somebody just doesn’t want this meeting to go ahead,” said a bemused Alistair Cohen in the Tellytrack studio after a series of freak events that must have had Gold Circle Chief Operating Officer Graeme Hawkins tearing his hair out while visiting his Mom in Cape Town.
What do we know.
It was a night meeting.
So lighting was paramount.
The first race was due off at 18h10 and was delayed over an hour.
We were kept posted but the technicalities were unclear as to where the problem lay.
The lights came on at about 19h00.
We were then told the Municipality was testing the lights and the current.
When the first race runners were sent down and loaded a false start was called.
Apprentice Divan Neethling broke his arm and was whisked to hospital.
There was no second ambulance.
The runners were returned to the unsaddling area and the first race was abandoned.
The second race was also then abandoned immediately.
The first leg of the Bipot and Place Accumalator were thus effectively abandoned and punters given no option to cancel their bets.
The questions.
Were the lights tested in advance of the meeting?
Was the fault localised and when did they become aware of it?
What was the nature of the fault?
Why do they not have a generator on-course as a back-up?
Given the extraordinary circumstances, why was a back-up ambulance not called the moment a jockey went to ground?
Why were there so many puddles on the polytrack?
Why was it necessary to ‘fluff’ the polytrack and cause even more delay?
Is it normal for polytrack going to be amended to ‘rain affected’?
Should Place Accumalator punters not have been given an option to cancel or change their bets-rather than be given a no-notice ‘race 2 abandoned’?
Was the Greyville meeting scheduled for international transmission?
What did the debacle cost in the end in terms of lost revenue?
Will any compensation be paid to stakeholders?
Let’s wait and see what comes out of this. For now, night time is not the right time – certainly not in KZN.
Gold Circle owe their customers an explanation.
And the key will be in the expediency of a response and hopefully the willingness and humility to concede that things need to be done more professionally and to explain the polytrack variances.
And owners, trainers and punters aside, consider some of the grooms whom we believe got home in the wee hours of this morning.
