Mark van Deventer
Mark Van Deventer is a welcome new face to the Tellytrack line up of presenters. A seasoned punter, whose pre-race research is clearly evident, Mark is immensely enthusiastic about the sport of horse-racing in South Africa.
He is currently working for Interbet, for which Mark provides podcast broadcasts, as well as writing articles and doing marketing. He is full of praise for the organisation, which has provided so much support for local horse-racing. Interbet has also recently opened a branch in Khayelitschia, and is continuing to spread its influence in South Africa.
Mark’s love for horse racing stems from the intellectual satisfaction of studying forma, handicapping, and selecting winners. While he makes no claims to being a high-roller punter, Mark has enjoyed plenty of good days backing winners.
His most notable score came when Mark advised a mate (a major punter) in putting together a Pick Six at Kenilworth. Basing the bet around three bankers and three fields, the Pick Six duly arrived – and won Mark and his friend a cool total of over R1 000 000!
Another memorable win came with former Equus Champion Past Master, when he scored in the J&B Met of 2011. After scoring a huge rating in the Diadem Stakes, Past Master disappointed somewhat in the Queen’s Plate, and Mark, who thought the conditions of the Met might suit the son of Jet Master, got on at 25-1.
Mark’s father enjoyed going racing, and taught his son to read partly through the use of one of South Africa’s best sporting reads – the SA Racehorse. As a teenager, Van Deventer worked for a bookie, which proved a real eye opener for him! While widely travelled and knowledgeable about a range of sports, Mark feels that racing with its various degrees of gambling and risk taking is the toughest and most mentally challenging of any spectator sport around today.
After a stint in the army, Mark went on to study and earn a degree in psychology in the mid 80-‘s – a tool he has found particularly useful in the field of sports science.
Mark played tennis for the Western Province Junior side, later becoming a tennis coach overseas and still lectures on the psychology of performance at tennis academies and works as the mental coach at the UCT CC.
Mark, whose jobs included work as a tour-guide/courier and selling neckties, travelled abroad where he earned his income coaching tennis in Germany and working for bookies in the UK. Back in South Africa, he moved into sports tourism, and he travelled on numerous sports tours, and was particularly involved with cricket trips. His job took Mark all over the world, but he eventually decided to return to South Africa and settle down.
Mark’s current passion involved speed figures, a system he has devised using advice and help from one of the industry’s great names, Andrew Beyer. Beyer, one of North America’s great racing gurus, devised a speed figure system based on an race’s variables – ie track conditions, a horse’ trip, and individual times.
While yet to meet Andrew in person, Mark has corresponded widely with the supportive and encouraging Beyer (a previous long time journalist for the Washington Post), and, in turn, has devised his own speed figure system.
Basing his own figures on the methods of Beyer and Len Ragozin, Mark has refined a system based primarily on a horse’ individual race times. He feels that South African racing could benefit greatly from the sectional timing which is used in North American and other racing jurisdictions to help with precise pace analysis.
He gets extensive knowledge and references from a large source of library of handicapping information that he has accumulated over a period of years. Mark says Computaform is his main source of pre-race reference and uses this to analyse the race’s final times. While a race’s adjusted final times are revealing, assessing the fractional times from his personal data of sectional times has been a revelation and a huge help to Mark’s punting success.
He will enter in his database any horse capable of winning two races or more, and give that individual a speed figure. It takes him approximately between 20 and 30 minutes to work out an individual’s rating, and the horses that Mark has given his highest local ratings to include National Currency (117), J J The Jet Plane (115), Jet Master (115), What A Winter (115), Pocket Power (113) Capetown Noir (112), Shea Shea (112) and Variety Club (111).
He admits that after watching Variety Club win the Matchem Stakes, he was hard pressed to find a horse to beat that champion in the Guineas, and Variety Club duly proved him right with a facile victory.
While Horse Chestnut was racing, Mark was not actively assessing race figures, but estimates that champion to have possibly accrued a speed figure around about 122. While Mark does not own any racehorses currently, he has in the past been involved in a few horses owned by various syndicates. He admits to relishing the thrill of leading in a winner, and has led in his share of winners.
Among the winners Mark has been previously involved in are Just A Dream and Natural Mystic – although he has also been at the other end of the owner spectrum. He describes the misleadingly named Turbo Takkies as “appalling!” His most memorable winner came in the form of Just Banter, with whom Mark long felt an emotional connection.
He had purchased a share in the gelding shortly after his sister had tragically died of a brain tumour, and when Just Banter, a son of Tara’s Halls, won his first race, the emotions ran high. Just Banter provided the family with fun and escapism during a desperately sad period.
The grey gelding would go on to win ten more races both locally and in Mauritius. Mark does not own any horses at the moment, but admits to respecting plenty of the game’s smaller trainers who place their more limited strings to the best of their ability.
As a punter, Mark feels that more should be done to reduce betting takeout. Whilst he understands the costs involved in, he feels it is a knock to betting turnover to claim 25% for tax – and quotes the rest of the world’s figures by contrast where turnover goes up when takeout comes down.
He also feels that authorities could provide more for punters in the way of betting seminars, by the way of introducing would be punters and race goers to the sport. While the challenges surrounding horse racing in South Africa are considerable (particularly in bringing new faces to the course), the fascination of the sport of kings continues to hold Mark van Deventer in thrall!
