A ticker tape parade through the streets of Melbourne and Sydney would be first prize, but JJ The Jet Plane, Lucky Houdalakis and Piere Strydom have justly earned the Freedom Of the Cities, of at the very least, Cape Town and Johannesburg and a place in our non-existent Hall Of Fame. Beating the best sprinters against all odds is one thing – but how many more times are our stars going to have to master the monster called Export Protocols before they beat the opposition? And what sinister and dark greedy political forces are at play Down Under?
I must wonder if all Australians are born whingers and bad sportsmen! Their much talked about classy mare Ortensia finished a well-beaten and no excuses fifth , yet they waxed more about her and Rocket Man in the post-race comments than our flying son of Jet Master. The look of amazement on their faces and the tangible disappointment in their voices after the cucumber cool and brilliant Piere Strydom moved up almost nonchalantly alongside Fred Crabbia’s Rocket Man and an animated Felix Coetzee, in the dying moments of the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong International Sprint on Sunday, just added to the sweet taste of a glorious South African victory. Strydom’s final sideways cursory glance and a stretch of the slight, yet powerful arms, saw the culmination of months of emotionally draining incarceration for JJ, uncertainty for the connections and sweat and tears come together in an ecstatic moment of victory that will be savoured by all involved and every proud South African for a long, long time to come. And what a great training feat by Lucky Houdalakis, a man who has held his training licence for just four years. Brilliant stuff!
ALCATRAZ
Few amongst the excited 60 000 crowd that thronged the ample and stunningly pristine environs of Sha Tin Racecourse could have even had a remote inkling of the rocky and testing road that this horse had walked for his moment of glory as the winners garland was draped around his neck. The concept of Export Protocols would be Greek to most of them but it is a sad and stark reality for any South African with international aspirations. I am not going to labour the specifics and time-frames, but JJ and Apartheid Police boss Eugene De Kock would have plenty to talk about were they to ever meet. De Kock spends his days incarcerated in C-Max prison and JJ’s sojourn at the awful Kenilworth Quarantine Station would have seen many similarities – albeit for a shorter period. The lack of space and exposure to fresh air and lifegiving sunlight and limited exercise opportunities must have drained the athlete and driven him to the edge of his emotional boundaries. The arduous and, one feels, unnecessarily long flight would have taken more out of him and, let’s face it, he was probably only 80% right when he beat the best on Sunday. He was also not the best looking or fittest of the runners that were analysed by the experts in the pre-race formalities under the unique retractable roof of the Sha Tin parade ring. And while Sky’s David Raphael was most complimentary of the South African effort, the one–eyed Aussies were one hundred percent correct when they had their customary dig and observed that he looked a ‘bit heavy around the middle’.
MOTHER HUBBARD
And it was all over in the flash of an eye and with the result in the frame, the thrilled owners and their trainer and his wife walked on air to the podium. I am sure that right now they remember little of what went down in those first fifteen minutes after the race and for Hennie ‘Cupboards’ du Preez, particularly, it must feel like a dream since he recklessly bid at the 2006 BSA two year old sale on lot 57 – a horse named after a talking aeroplane and with skew legs. Besides the tears from Thea Booyens and Natalie Houdalakis, I noticed that Cupboards was the only man on the podium singing the words to the anthem . But back to that sale. Called ‘Cupboards’ because he builds beautiful units, he wanted a Jet Master and he should have known that something was not kosher when he paid R70 000 for the Patricia Devine bred that was not on the short list of any of the qualified experts at the Sale – including his eventual trainer Lucky Houdalakis. Hotelier Thea Booyens and Property Developer and colourful racing character Coenie Strydom could not have possibly known then that a casual thumbs up to take a share with Cupboards would culminate in a beautiful Sunday and seven Group 1 races – and what must be the best days and memories of their lives. My good mate and longstanding racehorse owner Warren Laird quipped at the Sales a few years ago : ‘ Never mind the right horse – find the right partners first!’ It seems to have worked here.
THIRD WORLD
The memorable victory has, however, opened the inevitable wounds again on a few fronts and showed again that, while our horses , trainers and jockeys are truly world-class, our administrators are mickey mouse and years behind – even though, in their defence, we are not in Hong Kong and don’t have the world-class administration and culture and natural passion on every street corner . The fact remains that we need, as a start, to resolve the export protocol issues and stop the talking. We had the SA Horseracing Convention five years ago and then there was talk. We are still talking. And I am not having a swipe at Racing SA CEO Peter Gibson. Having worked with many of the leading lights, I can say categorically that Peter is one of the few genuine men who works tirelessly and takes his responsibilities to heart. It isn’t for lack of effort but there are stories and whispers that I do not understand that the real issues are political and driven by economics and greed – but what isn’t, you may ask? And James Goodman keeps telling us that the root of it all lies in Australia. Where, how and what? Goodman undertook on Monday past to get Mike de Kock and Peter Gibson on to his Winning Ways show to debate the nitty gritty. Mike De Kock is the only person I have encountered in my years of watching Tellytrack who shoots from the hip – and has the credibility that forces folk to listen. The show will be a sell-out. I hope it happens soon.
PUBLICITY FLOP
The next question: How on earth did this remarkable feat by ordinary South Africans – let us not forget that Felix Coetzee finished second on a horse carrying the silks of one of our leading owners – escape the attention of our mainstream media and newspaper editors ? I had a call from retired Cape racing administrator Mike Louw, who made some very relevant and pertinent assertions regarding the absence of media coverage and he made the point that Die Burger newspaper, as an example, carried a front page photograph on Monday Morning of golfer Lee- Anne Pace from Mossel Bay, who had just become the first South African to become the highest earner on the European Womens Golf Circuit. Good for her – but would she really have achieved what she had, had she spent a few months quarantined in Pretoria’s C-Max, exercising and seeing daylight only for a few hours a day and then traveling halfway around the world in a crate? And look at the mainstream coverage of the recent Soccer World Cup. For a team that couldn’t make it past the first round, Bafana Bafana enjoyed headline coverage almost daily. Something is very wrong when an achievement of this enormity is not utilised to promote and raise the profile of a sport that suffers from a questionable public image and is in dire need of positivity. We somehow, though, manage to get half-naked women parading at the races in ridiculous outfits on the front page of the Sunday newspapers on the weekend of the Vodacom Durban July and J&B Met. It just does not make sense.
GOOD QUESTION
Mike Louw posed the million dollar question – who is responsible to have ensured that the JJ story achieved the mileage that it reasonably should have? I don’t know the answer to that, frankly. One immediately looks to Racing South Africa, but they are just not geared for that – their focus is on more administrative matters and their industry brief is a different one, although they were at Newmarket in England recently as part of our Cape racing promotion. Then what about the operators? If Phumelela and Gold Circle ran congratulatory advertisements focusing on the horse as athlete and the international sporting aspect – and thrown in a reference to the big money involved. I am quite sure that they do have cost-effective access to broadsheets in terms of the Independent Newspapers- Racegoer arrangement. But where is the real energy and drive and the strategies and well-founded personal relationships that should already be in place to provide the platforms for a telephone call or two to have been made at 9am on Sunday to newspaper offices and magazines? Then on the betting front, why was there no co-mingling? Our local pools were ridiculously small and hardly encouraged any excitement or participation. Why such a damp squib?
The professionalism of the Hong Kong Jockey Club is an example to any racing jurisdiction in the world. How fantastic it was, as just one example, to have so many officials and international dignitaries on the podium and not a single person waffling or blowing his or somebody else’s trumpet. It makes a refreshing change to what we are so regularly exposed to and the post-race presentation, like everything else, was pure clockwork. The lump-in –the –throat rendition of our national anthem, played in tune and harmoniously by a band that have probably never heard the song and certainly couldn’t pronounce the name of it, was another wonderful touch. We have such a long way to go here but are we going to do something and see change before JJ returns to Hong Kong defend his title in 2011?
