It has been a rough few weeks for Eastern Cape Racing.
Searing heat, unexplained wet patches on the track, missing trophies – and now a meeting moves from turf to the polytrack after what is said to be insufficient rain to justify the switch – according to certain locals, anyway.
The Sporting Post was contacted this morning by various local stakeholders, including leading owners, who have confirmed that they are seriously reconsidering their support of Eastern Cape Racing in view of the ‘ongoing lack of professionalism’.
“It’s a different circus every week. Now we have 13mm of rain and there isn’t even a professional jockey to gallop the course? It’s one thing after the next and we are plain gatvol,” added the owner.
The litany of events listed by the various complainants include the recent meeting that was called off due to unbearable heat – ‘’it was far too late with one race to go. What a disingenuous and poor decision,” said another.
Veteran local trainer Jacques Strydom was approached and was prepared to be quoted.
He said that a lack of detailed information was probably leading to the conspiratorial assumptions about today’s meeting.
Jacques Strydom
“Look, it doesn’t matter how much rain fell and how many horses were galloped by whom today – or even which jockeys chose not to gallop. Fact of the matter is that the safety of horse and rider is of paramount importance and the reality that the penetrometer reading varied from 25 to 40 in certain parts of the turf track this morning meant that a gallop was really not even necessary. That high variance in pen reading is an indicator of serious injury potential for a horse. Try run alternatively on hard sand and soft sand on the beach – now take a horse at 70km an hour on turf of uneven firmness. That’s dangerous. It would not be fair to anybody to race on that turf today,” added Strydom.
Of the meeting of last Friday that was delayed due to rails having to be moved after the first race due to a wet patch, the concern was expressed by various callers as to why send the horses to the start for the second before doing something about the complaint?
“They don’t want to waste time-a few jockeys complained after the first. So they landed up compounding matters by forcing the issue and telling them to carry on. It’s unprofessional. But everybody is under pressure as there are international schedules to abide by and flights to catch,” said a local, who chose to remain anonymous and suggested that nobody had properly explained yet as to what caused the wet patches last Friday.
“Was it the sprinkler – or the wind blowing the sprinkler? How does one manage and take corrective action when you don’t know what happened. And if they do know what happened, why on earth hide it? Who was answerable – how do they prevent it happening again? It’s the way of racing. Nobody is ever accountable for anything. Has anybody ever been bulleted for not doing their job properly in the past five years? But we must keep investing in horses and just carry on smiling.”
The Racing Association didn’t escape the anger.
Apparently the trophies for last Friday’s Listed Ibhayi Stakes were not handed out and are now in the process of being manufactured.
