20 Years Ago: Sands Of Time – March 1993

February 28 – March 6

A week has passed, and still no word from the Jockey Club about the “additional evidence” reportedly led in the Doug Whyte “whipping” appeal. This leads to further castigation of the Club by the Cape media, where demands are made to be put in the picture.

Two days later the Jockey Club owns up, by making public the wording of the judgement, which indicates that the Appeal Board regarded the incident as a borderline case and ruled 2:1 in Whyte’s favour. There is, however, no sign of the “additional” evidence quoted in the original press release.

The SPCA now joins the fracas, with chief inspector Shaun Bodington declaring himself “totally dissatisfied” with Whyte’s acquittal. Bodington suggests that the SPCA is given a voice in future disciplinary hearings.

Whatever next?

Down, but not out. Godfrey Gird is back in business when a Scottish buyer, one Derek Holt, forks out R2.7 million at the public auction of Oaklands Farm in the Bains Kloof Valley. Oaklands had been placed under liquidation in January.

During a break in the auction (between selling the farm and the movable goods), Gird and Holt come to an agreement whereby Gird will continue to manage the farm, provided an agreement with creditors can be reached before the Oaklands owned horses come up for auction.

The Racing Calendar of 4 March carries an interesting selection in the section for horses that have been gelded.

Names include (we kid you not) Dallas Cowboy, Dennis The Menace, Duzzn’t Dream, Good Tidings, Magical Boy, Hard Test, and topping it all “A Horse Called Man”.

The racemeeting at Newmarket is postponed because of continuous rain from Tuesday to Wednesday, but at least the meeting takes place. Wardlaw’s son Lothair scores a surprise victory in the Computaform Derby Trial over 2000m, beating Hidden Fortune by over 5 lengths.

The going is similarly soft at the next day’s meeting at the Vaal, where jockeys declare the going dangerous after the running of the fourth race. But after the jocks meet with the stipes, racing continues as planned.

Natal raceclubs re-introduce breakfast racing, for two Saturday meetings in March, at Scottsville and Clairwood. The meetings are an extension of an experiment generated in 1992, where breakfast racing was introduced to avoid clashes with major other (local) sporting events. The Natal Clubs feel that the experiment would not be complete unless morning meetings were also tested on days where there were no other sport events in Natal.

The first of these meetings is held at Scottsville. Attendance is marginally down, but the Pick Six pool takes a knock in comparison to the previous year. A computer failure halfway through the meeting does little to cheer things up.

Empress Club’s victory in the R400.000 Gr1 First National 1600 at Turffontein borders on the arrogant. The 4yo filly wins by 2.5 lengths from Please Be True, but pulling up, and in a manner that leaves little doubt about her superiority over the opposition, which she meets at WFA. The Empress’ earnings pass the R3 million mark in the process.

The local racecard carries a message from Turffontein chairman Colin Dunn, who describes the First National as “South Africa’s leading weight-for-age event over the classic distance of 1600m”. Whatever happened to the Queens Plate and the Schweppes Challenge, Colin?

 

March 7 -13

The Jockey Club meets with TBA, government officials and several invited guests to discuss the importation criteria set by the TBA. The day-long meetings fails to deliver anything concrete, but may have softened the previously rigid approach of the TBA regarding importation of unraced stock.

The Cape Racing Board (appointed by Province) is disbandoned. It is anticipated that a steering committee will take over from the Board.

 

March 14 – 20

The Natal Tote reduces the Pick Six betting unit from 50 cent to 10 cent, because of a similar step taken in the Cape some time ago, which resulted in pool-increases of up to 50%.

As fate has it, the first 10-cent Pick Six meeting benefits from a carry-over from the meeting before, which swells the pool to over a million. When there’s again no winner, the double carry-over pool grows to a whopping R3.4 million, which is shared to the tune of R98.000 per winning ticket – odds of almost a million to one!

Veteran jockeys line up at Greyville, in a R30.000 race sponsored by Singapore Airlines. The race is won by Natal trainer Denis Bosch on McCreedy trained Danzig Dazzler, who scored by five lengths at odds of 8/1.

Deception reaches new heights in the Cape, where trainer Watters declares the horse I’m Me for a top division race when the animal is already in Mauritius. The horse in question is set to carry top weight, which influence the rest of the weights in the race, but more importantly favours second-topweight Beet The Book, another of trainer Watters’ runners in the race. When I’m has to be scratched on the day of the race, Beet The Book is better off at the weights than he had been if I’m Me had not been amongst the original entries. Beet the Book starts 18/10 favourite, but can only finish fourth.

The Jockey Club opens an investigation.

Command Control, a son of deceased first-season sire Enforce (a son of Foveros), extends his winning streak to four by winning the Gr3 Cape Nursery in easy fashion. Command Control is trained by Natal visitor Vaughn Marshall, and looks set to make his mark in his home province during the winter season.

Selwyn Lipschitz brings off a clever gamble when his 3yo colt Lord Shirldor wins the Bloodline Classic. Lipschitz paid R50.000 on the eve of the race to qualify his horse for the R300.000 added stake for Bloodline Series candidates – that’s odds of 5/1, almost twice the opening price of 28/10 for Lord Shirldor, who eventually started at 15/10. Lipschitz hadn’t told his trainer Terry Lowe or jockey Francois Naude about the buy-in, to avoid putting extra pressure on them. It is the second major race won by Lord Shirldor, who clearly revels in the soft underfoot conditions. Millard trained Dancing Duel, returning from a lay-off, finishes second.

The champion trainer gets his revenge less than an hour later when juvenile Royal Thunder runs out an impressive winner of the Bloodline Million. Royal Thunder is a son of sire Northern Guest, who is having an outstanding season.

Things change when the National Yearling Sales are held at Gosforth Park. The number of entries is reduced to 726, from 831 in 1991 and 800 in 1992. The Saturday night session is re-introduced, with favourable results (the evening has the highest average of all four selling sessions). The Bloodline Million concept is changed, which effectively removes a “select” aspect of the sales. And overseas buyers are encouraged through a scheme whereby a 2% commission is given to any person who purchases yearlings on behalf of overseas buyers. The scheme is financed through an extra 0.5% accross-the-board charge to vendors (who now pay 6.5% instead of 6% last year).

Unfortunately few overseas agents attend, and yearlings bought on behalf of foreign buyers are few and far between. The Sale average drops to R40.000, with a median price of R30.000.

The sale average presumably could have been higher hadn’t it been for Denis Drier’s catalogue (with all his notes) taking a walk shortly before the start of the sale. It’s a rather unusual theft, which to this day remains unsolved.

Top price at the sale is R200.000, reportedly paid by an overseas buyer (through Delta Bloodstock) for the Vigliotto half brother to Grey Angel. The same amount was allocated to the sale of Senor Santa’s full brother to trainer Toby Spies, but this transaction was concluded outside of the sale ring.

 

March 21 – 27

The Cape Province reconstitutes the Cape Racing Board, under chairmanship of former BP chairman Ian Sims. Members of the Board are representatives of the Province, race clubs, OTA’s and the Cape breeders club. Advocate Fikile Bam is appointed to represent the public and punters (!). Main mission of the new Board will be to put the racing industry in the Cape on a sound commercial footing by the end of 1993.

Weekend Surprise, dam of US Horse of the Year AP Indy and his Gr1 winning half brother Summer Squall, is named broodmare of the year in the US. Weekend Surprise is the half sister to South African stallion Al Mufti, who ran second in the Rothmans July two years ago and stands at Rose Parker’s Ascot Stud in PE.

Computaform launches Computab, a broadsheet available at all Transvaal TAB outlets. Computab shows a remarkable likeness to Winning Form’s TABform, on sale in Natal.

In the UK, the racing and breeding industry comes to a break-through agreement with the tax authorities over VAT. A new scheme allows for across-the-board VAT registration, but requires an undertaking from owners that they will actively seek sponsorship, appearance money and prize money, to show that there is a business intent on the part of the owner and that production of income is actively pursued. The VAT threshold in the UK is œ37 600 and only those who could not previously achieve this level will register under the new scheme.

It is understood that the new VAT arrangements are ring-fenced, so that owners cannot off-set losses as an owner against other taxable income.

Felix Coetzee flies in from Hong Kong to be reunited with Empress Club in the R1.25 million Administrator’s Cup over 2000m at Turffontein. Millard’s stable jockey Marcus is unable to take the ride because of a suspension. The filly carries top weight of 58 kilos, but nevertheless is priced at 1/3 on bookmaker’s boards. Radio South Africa announces that the race is run as the Bookmaker’s handicap – which initially sounds like one of those typical SABC mistakes, but takes on a different meaning when Empress Club, at odds of 1/3, fails to make the frame to give the bookmakers a field day. The filly had every chance, but simply lacked her usual acceleration and must have had an off day.

The Cup is won by 33/1 outsider Cardinal Fury, who wins in what is announced as a new race record time – not surprising, really, as it is the first time the race is run at Gosforth Park!

We hope you enjoyed these snippets of horse racing history from South Africa.