The oldest racecourse in the Southern Hemisphere will become the new stage for 200 South African racehorses when the Champ de Mars hosts the first of 37 meetings on 24 March, headlined by the Duchess Of York Cup.
Mauritius has been the only genuine second-hand market for decades for South African owners looking to offload or take a profit, and the influence of our horses every season can be gauged when the import numbers are viewed against the Indian Ocean Island’s total racing active equine population of just 425 horses.
Weichong Marwing and Derreck David have been confirmed as the SA jockey contingent, with an unnamed third pending.
Horseracing is all of 206 years old in the popular holiday destination and going strong. But an insider tells us that it is not without the problems faced by many racing jurisdictions worldwide.
“We have a passionate culture of gambling on the horses, but the Government is not a great friend of the sport and there is little collaboration before issuing directives. Like the example of field sizes having been set at a minimum of 6 horses. No explanation or rationale has been tendered,” said the source, who preferred to remain anonymous.
He said that the authority granted to the PMU – Pari Mutuel Urbain – the French state-controlled betting system, to broadcast international racing in Mauritius, a country historically satisfied with a once weekly dose of passion, has served to further drain the engine-driving betting turnover on local racing.
”Despite the glut of offshore racing, the locals still prefer the real live product and the hometown heroes,” he adds.
The Mauritius Turf Club had planned to hold 40 racemeetings this season but have only been allowed 37, with three Sunday meets dropped. The popular International Jockeys’ Challenge, to be held on 1 and 2 December, will thus be the only weekend of racing all season.
The Thinker wins the Gr2 Joburg Merchants in November 2017
There is some real quality in the SA draft. Recent Gr2 Merchants winner The Thinker and multiple Gr1 star Seventh Plain are amongst the list of new season imports.
Interestingly, the Mauritius Turf Club freely publishes the names of the new gallopers, and are willing to talk about them.
The same transparent public-spirited approach does not apply to our own National Horseracing Authority, who despite the fact that this is by far our biggest export market, do not publish any names of Mauritius exports in their weekly calendar.
On enquiry as to why this glaring gap on the NHA calendar, we were informed that it would be ‘given due attention’.
And as if to show that they are the almighty power over all information related to the sport in this country, they refused to disclose any further details.
“Due to a court case pending, we are unable to disclose any information regarding Mayfair Speculators/Mr M Jooste’s exported horses,” says the response, which adds that we may want to ‘contact Mr D Brugman’. The Racing Manager has not returned messages – certainly not to us – since the Jooste storm broke in early December.
The only reference we could track to the NHA’s reference of a ‘court case pending’ is Absa’s legal action against Mayfair Speculators, which was postponed earlier this month to 30 April in order to give the parties an opportunity to reach agreement out of court.
How does that have a bearing on withholding information from the public? No financial figures are ever published – and we weren’t asking for them. This actually started as a story about our horses in Mauritius!
The policing body of our sport referring the media to the owner representative on a matter of process that should be published for all stakeholders’ information purposes leaves a bad taste.
The puzzle deepens when pondering why the NHA published the registrations of change of ownerships for the Mayfair Speculators horses that remained racing locally.
Export certificates are required by most receiving countries on export as a means of maintaining their individual stud book records. Our research has shown that Mauritius and Hong Kong, as ‘non-breeding’ destinations do not require this.
An official of the South African Reserve Bank assures us that in terms of exchange control regulations, all proceeds of horses exported for sale are repatriated back to South Africa. This is monitored through the seller’s / exporter’s bankers.
We await the National Horseracing Authority getting their house in order and maintain our protest of their policy to selectively protect information.
This story will continue – in the meanwhile please click on the image below for more
