Mixed Fortunes. A double and a tumble for Grant Van Niekerk.
A poor show and an abject lesson in how not to treat a customer. The favourite Reptillian dumped her rider at the start of the fifth race at Durbanville on 17 August. That was it. No feedback. No news. Just an all clear result on Tellytrack some seventeen minutes later.
How to win customers and influence the unconverted? Definitely not and this is hardly the way to treat the very blood that pumps through the veins of an industry currently in a precarious state of health. When is somebody going to wake up and smell the roses?
Our issue is not with the fact that Grant Van Niekerk fell out of the saddle of the six year old mare as the gates opened. Accidents happen in horse racing and this incident ranks amongst those familiarly called ‘the rub of the green’ by those in authority. And as gamblers we accept that mud happens. But why no feedback or comment from the track? We realised that the young jockey had not broken anything when he appeared for the same stable and wearing the same silks in the very next race. Lightening doesn’t strike twice in the same place, so Van Niekerk would not have been too nervous either as he entered those starting stalls so soon after his fall from grace.
The first that most punters would have known that something was amiss with the tote favourite in the fifth race was when commentator Rouvaun Smit mentioned something about a riderless horse at about the 1400m marker. The more experienced amongst us picked it up as Van Niekerk did a somersault as the gates opened and the daughter of Lizard Island was clearly missing in action. She is a strong front-runner and is normally at the head of affairs after a few strides.
So where did the communications machine go wrong? Tellytrack is our first port of call for information, but they show little initiative on a good day and can only disseminate what they are told from the course. Gold Circle and the National Horseracing Authority manage the meeting jointly in essence. As policemen, rather than servants of the industry, the National Horseracing Authority naturally have no personality or marketing bent. So why would they care about the racing operator’s customers needs? Not to forget, of course, that their salaries and snazzy offices are subsidised indirectly by those very customers.
It all comes down to customer care and good public relations. And we will say it for the umpteenth time that these are concepts obviously foreign to horseracing. Why on earth, after racing in the Cape for a century and a half, is there not a process in place to explain and inform? Television is a friend and asset, not a liability and enemy. But nobody assumes charge and takes the lead in keeping the punter informed. In the meantime, let’s cry about the casinos. Let’s cry about the recession. Let’s cry about the lack of attendance. It is not going to improve until the whole show lifts a notch or three.
Great ride. Craig Du Plooy showed his skills in the first.
The unseasonally balmy weather and milky berg wind that greeted racegoers to the scenic country course set the scene for an eventful day. The card looked particularly competitive, and so it turned out to be! Craig Du Plooy got things under way in the first race when he kept the Vaughan Marshall-trained speedster Appeal Allowed going to ward off the late challenge of the low-flying Trish De Lago in the Maiden Plate over 1000m. Du Plooy, who runs the Cape Grooms School at Milnerton, last rode a winner in January but he really doesn’t get the greatest of rides, so his strike rate is immaterial. He has an uncanny kind and casual style of riding and certain horses run for him.
Jockey Greg Cheyne ended his short African holiday before jetting back to Hong Kong this weekend with a winner in the jackpot opener. He rode the Joey Ramsden-trained Right And Ready to a convincing victory in the MR 88 Handicap over 1800m in the brown and white Rhona Beck silks. In an open looking race, Silvan Wind and Mystery Dame ran on best to finish second and third respectively.
Unwitting villain of the peace Grant Van Niekerk rode a great double at Kenilworth on Saturday for the Mike Bass yard and he bounced back today with another two-timer. He rode the Mellifont colt Offertory to a nice end-to-end win in the second race, although he showed his youthful inexperience by turning around and dropping his hands about fifty meters from the line. In so doing he allowed the improved Aim Of The Game to get far too close for comfort. Offertory was bred by the Rosedene Stud and cost just R20 000 at last year’s Vintage Sale. Van Niekerk was back in the winner’s enclosure in the very next race when he rode the least fancied of the Bass three-way coupling to a commanding victory. The stable elect and favourite Aqualung looked a good thing in this Maiden Plate for fillies and mares over 1400m but the daughter of Lake Coniston came under early pressure in the straight and plodded one-paced into third spot. There were no visible excuses for her pathetic effort and she will battle to win a race on this run.
Double Dean. Nice feature double for the Kannemeyer yard.
Dean Kannemeyer was all smiles after sending out a ‘feature’ double, which included an impressive win by the game Dynasty gelding Blake in the day’s joint ‘feature’, the MR 97 Handicap over 2400. As is his usual style, the perennial galloper Hospitality went up to make the pace from the break and his rider Richard Fourie cleverly slowed things up. Karl Neisius kept the leader in his sights and let Blake loose at around the 250m marker. The Kannemeyer horse swept by Hospitality to record his fifth win from twenty starts. It was a great win off a slowish pace and the son of Dynasty looks like one of the better staying prospects around for the forthcoming season.
On the subject of stayers, Kannemeyer’s second winner, Cree Lodge, caught punters off guard by staying on well to win the day’s joint top-liner, the MR 97 Handicap over 1400m. The former Langerman winner has developed into a good stayer and was having something of a pipe-opener here. Felix Coetzee produced him down the inside to catch the pacemaking Cap Alright – a gelding Felix knows very well!
Andrew Fortune has been battling the weight and fitness bogey and got off the majority of his rides today. One of the horses he stuck with though was the Ingrid and Markus Jooste owned Ridge Too Far in the final leg of the jackpot, and he outrode veteran Karl Neisius who drew alongside him at the 300m on the favourite Jet Into The Wind. The bright red Devine silks looked a winner 200m out, but a determined, and hungry, Fortune had other ideas.
