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Opinion

Sporting Post columnists share their opinions and insights into horse racing from South Africa and around the world. They are experts who have a deep understanding of the sport of kings, enjoy their thoughtful and fresh articles.

Horse Chestnut

The People’s Champion

You all know I’m a bit soft in the head when it comes to horses. I grew up on a diet of Anna Sewell, Marguerite Henry and Elyne Mitchell. I graduated to Walter Farley, Mary O’Hara and Dick Francis. The stories may have varied a little, but the horses were always big and brave. The best ones had fire in their hearts and ran like sheet lightning. The horsey movies of my youth had wonderful slow-motion footage of the hero eating up the turf, or galloping across a beautiful English meadow. The best I’ve ever seen is Francis Ford Cuppola’s The Black Stallion where Alec Ramsay and The Black gallop on the beach. Suddenly the music fades and you are caught up in the rhythmic movement of the legs, those perfect hooves striking the ground, The Black’s mane flowing in the breeze. Alec lets go and throws his hands out, flying aboard his horse….

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25th January 2011 1 Comment

One Week Down, One To Go – Rose leHeup

What a fantastic whirl of non stop activity all the breeders have put on for everyone this past week. I made it to the gym this morning, but I think I was alcohol pouring out of my skin not sweat!

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25th January 2011 No Comments

A Midnight Run To Madness? – Lance Benson

My recently rejuvenated interest in the brilliant fare being dished up by the Western Cape’s Sizzling Summer Season took a sobering knock on Saturday afternoon. Treating one’s customers like desperado intellectually challenged palukas is a one-way ticket to oblivion and no amount of internationalisation and foreign investment is going to change anything until the right genuinely passionate horseracing people are placed in the key positions. We desperately need some input from the old school guys who really loved their jobs and the game, and even took their clothes off when the moment demanded it.

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25th January 2011 No Comments

Too Many Clowns? – Robyn Louw

If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse. From what I hear, everybody out there wants change. So in that case we’re out of excuses, folks. All those in favour say ‘aye’.

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18th January 2011 No Comments

The Joys Of Ownership – Rose leHeup

What an exciting few weeks ahead of us. The great Gambler and I flew in just before the l’Omarins Queens Plate to be surrounded by blue as opposed to grey back home in the UK. What a pleasure to see the sky again after weeks of low cloud and snow filled skies and what a pleasure to be at Kenilworth for the most stylish of race meetings. It just shows what can be done.

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18th January 2011 No Comments

Secretariat – a runaway winner

There have been some excellent horse racing movies over the past 30 years, most notably the Australian, Simon Wincer’s take on “Phar Lap” (1983), which was glorious in its widescreen version but which lost much in translation to a TV format. Who can ever forget that shot of Phar lap being paraded before the Melbourne Cup, in a shimmering, tasseled, red satin blanket, asks Jimmy Lithgow.

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11th January 2011 No Comments

Man In The Arena – Robyn Louw

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

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11th January 2011 No Comments

A Beautiful Day – Lance Benson

Western Cape horseracing is in great shape! One could be forgiven for thinking so after a fantastic day of high-quality horseracing and downright superb entertainment on Saturday. The l’Ormarins Queen’s Plate raceday was a living tribute to professionalism, commitment and great organisation and just shows what can be done with a winning core product and the right people calling the shots.What price we had some mouthwatering lips and calculators buzzing up North again on Saturday evening?

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11th January 2011 No Comments

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