No nonsense but plenty of fun. While we have vastly differing economies of scale and culture, South African racing administrators may consider taking a leaf out of the book of our friends to the East across the ocean. Mauritius horseracing supposedly revolves around big gambling and street corner whispers, but they can teach us a thing or two about being real and positive.
I have had the pleasure of spending some time at the Champ de Mars and the down-to-earth hospitality and humility, coupled with a single minded willingness by the management to welcome visitors is the lingering thought that remains with me always. Instead of being too bloody high and mighty and important to speak to a mickey mouse media monkey from Africa, accessibility and provision of information is what they do best and they know how to win friends and influence people.
Anniversary
2012 is a huge year on the island with the Mauritius Turf Club celebrating 200 years of existence and the carnival atmosphere will linger from day one right through to the first week of December, when the curtain comes down with the International Jockeys’ Weekend.
And while field sizes are a favourite dinner table topic of discussion in the Cape, we have to give the Mauritians credit for stressing about very little and definitely not sweating the small stuff! After the debacle with the State Vet’s spanner in the works thrown into the movement of horses to the island in December, things are going smoothly now as the passionate folk get on with the business of life and racing.
Should they be worried? No, why? Their first serious feature race of the season, the Duchess Of York Cup, to be run next Saturday 31 March has attracted only eight nominations that include some familiar names like Exclaim ‘N’ Exclude, Il Saggiatore , Accelero and Mr Black Tom . The difference is that most of the eight nominations will probably accept and the media and public are already speculating about the winner – not the whinger.
Racing Rules
Then glancing through their local rule book, there is evidence of practicality, pride and control – hopelessly lacking in this huge jurisdiction of ours. Take the old story of formalisation of the relationship between the trainer and the owner. The rules say that this shall be reached in an agreement with The Mauritius Turf Club and administered by the Owner Billing and Registration Department of the MTC. Seriously-imagine the authorities taking on such a huge responsibility here?
Then let’s say a trainer wishes to ‘change well-established race tactics’ relating to any horse under his care. He is bound to inform the Racing Stewards before the horse has been saddled for the particular race. So water is thrown on the flames of sinister betting moves, conspiracy theories and the post-race finger pointing, while not excluded, has been dealt with professionally.
The grooms are also given some responsibility beyond beer mugs and funny low ranking races once a month. A horse must stay with the same groom as soon as it is nominated for provisional entry. When a horse is subjected to a change of groom, the lock must be replaced at the time the retiring groom hands over the horse to the relief groom. This exchange must be signed by both grooms in the register kept by the Chief Security Officer. Any change of groom at the Guy Desmarais Training Centre must be registered on a form provided for that purpose. At the end of each week such form has to be returned to the Chief Security Officer in Port Louis.
Then the old debate of image. Each trainer must provide an extra uniform for his grooms on race-day. In the event that it is a sponsored day, T-shirts provided by the sponsors will be given priority over the Stable’s uniform. As they say, it’s the small things that count and I’m not suggesting that they are without their problems.
Hanging Five
Brandon Morgenrood
I bumped into Brandon Morgenrood on Monday as he prepared feverishly for his first trip to Mauritius. Having become a Dad recently, he has taken a serious new angle on his career and life and he was scheduled to fly out of Cape Town on Tuesday bound for his first season in Mauritius. He declared himself ‘excited and looking forward to the fresh challenge.’
Despite a lurking battle with the weight bogey, Morgenrood has been in the form of his life, enjoying the rewards of his hard work at the beautiful Plattner Racing establishment out at Rondeberg on the Cape West Coast . He has ridden chiefly for Yogas Govender over the past six months.
With his riding kit in one hand and his surfboard in the other, Morgenrood said that he was ‘extremely chuffed’ that he had secured the position with a well established yard. He said that he had taken plenty of advice and input from jockeys who had ridden at the Champ de Mars and said that it would be a thrill just riding in front of a good crowd every Saturday.
Brandon’s new boss Perdrau, who has been registered with the MTC since 1984, and carries the distinction of being the longest serving trainer on the island. He enjoyed his best ever season in 2011 with 30 winners. Although he enjoyed a fair amount of success with local jockey Rye Joorawon towards the end of last season, he has opted to rather go the fashionable route of retaining a top-class South African rider.
Perdrau has a nicely balanced string of 29 horses this season that includes no real stars, but notable new ammunition includes the two talented former Dean Kannemeyer horses Siegfried and I Am What I Am.
Teams
The recently married and somewhat restless talent Donovan Mansour will be teaming up with Serge Henry, while Cape boy Mark Neisius teams up again with Raj Ramdin. Neisius finished eighth on the jockey table last season with twelve winners and he will be looking to build on that.
Jockey MJ Odendaal who has made an impact in the Cape in the past four months joins forces with the Hughes Maigrot Stable. Odendaal rode last season for the Foo Kune Stable and then teamed up with Ricky Maingard for the final stages of 2011.
The Gujadhur stable will not be fielding any runners in this first meeting as a mark of respect on the passing last Wednesday of its Matriarch and Stable Manager, Mrs Gunness Gujadhur, at age 92.
Known as Tantine Mica, she was the stable manager following the death of her husband Gunness. During this period, she had the distinction of winning two Maiden Cups with Solar Symbol and Senor Versace. Ramapatee Gujadhur , who took over the training reins on the passing of his brother Ladou in 2002, is looking forward to a big season this year. They are certainly a stable to be with.
Newton’s Law Of Movement
Lee Newton
There is absolutely nothing wrong with powerful names like De Kock, Kannemeyer and Ramsden to get a prospective employer to have a second serious look at one’s CV. At age 25, Lee Newton has seven years hard earned experience to his credit and he now gets his big chance to earn his stripes in the hard knocks school of English racing.
The benefit of a solid grounding and the inestimable value of South African horseracing experience have once again been illustrated by the recent appointment of this young emerging talent to the staff of Newmarket based trainer Gerard Butler. Lee flew out of Cape Town on Tuesday to commence work as Assistant Trainer to Butler from the beginning of next week.
Egerton Road Stables are home to the Irish born Butler’s 40 strong string and the man who cut his teeth working for giants like D. Wayne Lukas and John Dunlop , runs a professional client orientated business.He is in his twelfth season and races both in the UK and abroad.
Newton said that he was looking forward to the new challenge and knows a little bit about the local ropes, having worked for Mike De Kock in Newmarket previously. “ I have been very fortunate to serve apprenticeships with some of the very best yards and trainers around. Mike De Kock, Richard Hannon, Dean Kannemeyer, Justin Snaith and Joey Ramsden are the very different but highly successful personalities that I have learnt from. They each have their own unique style and I’d like to believe that I have harnessed their individual guidance ,” he said.
Lee has been helping out at the Joey Ramsden yard in recent months and the hard taskmaster and leading Cape Trainer said he wished Lee well: “ He is a hardworking and very polite young man. He also rides very well for such a tall fellow. I have urged him to stick with it and let’s face it – it is a harsh reality of life wherever we go that the right jobs are very hard to come by, no matter how good or capable the individual may be.”
Positive Steps
The dissemination problem at Borrowdale on Sunday 11 March that saw Gavin Lerena’s switch to win the seventh race on Syracuse, and was only made known to the public after the race effectively, has been the subject of my research and digging.
Interestingly, the jockey change of Riddle to Lerena was declared at around 8am on raceday. That means that in over 7 hours, nobody knew about it at Tellytrack.
I referred the matter to Phumelela Racing Executive Patrick Davis who, to his utter credit, got the right people involved, including Robson Chinamasa of the Racing Centre in Zimbabwe. Chinamasa also showed a refreshing willingness to assist and replied as follows: “ I note with concern that there was a complication with the dissemination of Borrowdale info on race 7. I would like to advise that the first circulation with the same info was circulated at 10.02am by Betina. I phoned the Tellytrack Studio at about 10:50am to check if they had received our info which they confirmed negative. I then sent the same email being quoted at 11:18am. Why the first email was not received I am still trying to find out. I received a successful mail delivery messages for these emails at 11:19am for the second email. Please find attached a copy of the email sent, the card changes in question and the successful mail delivery message for your perusal.”
I then received a call from Ken Rutherford, Phumelela’s Media Excecutive who admitted that there were some unanswered questions regarding the reliability of the communication systems, including the fact that the telephone numbers quoted by the Zim official did not appear to exist. Rutherford said that Tellytrack was looking seriously at processes and staff training and that management was committed to improving the level of service and accuracy.
While I am not convinced that we have quite gotten to the bottom of the Lerena issue, I am pleased with the giant step that men like Davis and Rutherford are talking to us. That makes a bloody big difference and the mistakes take on an entirely new complexion when we have the assurance that they are trying their damndest.
Rutherford assured me that his door was always open to the media and the public.
