The Cape Racing Team’s efforts to upgrade the previously ‘awful tasteless’ Kenilworth dining venue of years past, have come in for high praise from two leading industry personalities.
Clearly keen to break ties and associations with the recent dark years of remote autocratic management, the Cape Racing Team have become trendsetters and have provided locals with a taste of what they are looking for – rather than what some Joburg-based Exec imagines they’d like. And a Gauteng-based champion trainer has called for Turffontein to follow suit.
I was so pleasantly surprised during my visit to Kenilworth last Saturday I felt it warranted a short blog posting, wrote Mike de Kock on his website recently.
The revamped Racing Association Room at the track is really impressive. I hadn’t set foot here since the Sun Met earlier this year, and the difference is quite remarkable.
The new RA room, which is accessible from the front of the grandstand, is bright and fresh with an excellent view and the service was excellent. The menu needs a tweak, understandable in its early days and I’m already looking forward to race back here on Guineas Day.
Congratulations are due to the Racing Association and Kenilworth Racing’s boss, Bradley Ralph, Jono Snaith and their team. Their energy here is tangible and if this is their opening base to build from, we can expect some wonderful innovations in future. This is just simply good for racing in the region.
I’d like to see the same kind of vibe at Turffontein during next year’s Autumn Feature Season. Kenilworth, with their rejuvenated leadership, will undoubtedly be the trendsetters.
I’d also like to mention Cape Racing’s Star Grooms campaign, launched on Saturday as a gesture of appreciation for the people who work so tirelessly behind the scenes.
For the duration of the 2020/21 Summer Season, Lady Christine Laidlaw’s Khaya Stables will be rewarding the Top 5 grooms in all feature events with cash prizes, a total of 29 races until the end of February 2021.
This is a show of goodwill, not window-dressing, and a great help for grooms. They are the first up in the morning and the last to leave the stables at night, taking care of our horses. Well done and thank you to Khaya Stables.
Heartiest congrats and thanks to all – I must congratulate the team at Kenilworth for making the owners dining room so radically different from the awful tasteless place it used to be, wrote leading bloodstock man John Freeman on his weekly eNews.
They have also fixed up the first floor landing with new flooring and plants. Looks welcoming and clean not like some tired old threadbare backwater tavern.
Even the loos have been given a facelift. It makes a huge difference to one’s attitude about being at the races, limited as attendance must be.
The dining arrangements are well spaced out and since the Covid policy is even stricter on course than at restaurants, with the doors open, one doesn’t feel threatened. That said we all do take a lot of care.
The team at Kenilworth want to rename the 1st floor dining room.
If you have any clever suggestions please email: [email protected] previously called the Paddock Room, I think ‘Winners Circle’ has a nice ring to it.
- Racing today at Kenilworth – first at 13h10
