South African Horseracing and Public Relations don’t exactly go hand in hand like a horse and carriage, or even the longer shot of love and marriage. The National Horseracing Authority, however, threw us doubting Thomases a curved ball at Kimberley last Monday afternoon, where a seemingly frivolous jockey protest under sunny Northern Cape skies eventually led to the abandonment of the meeting, and the expected natural disappointment and disenchantment for trainers, owners and punters. The way the potential negative was handled, though, was a shining example in minor crisis management, executed efficiently.
The acknowledged and lauded scribe, David Williams, writing in a recent copy of the Financial Mail, speaks of the four golden rules of crisis management. Summed up, he suggests they are broadly: acting quickly, admitting the problem, telling the story and finally providing a fix. That never happens in horseracing, you’re probably thinking and why we should be wondering, because it sounds so bloody simple when put like that?
Williams goes on to sketch the example of Parktown Boys’ High School in Johannesburg, which became the centre of media attention some time ago, for alleged initiation rites and bullying. Today the school is ranked amongst the top 100 in South Africa after a ‘hard time’, succinctly paraphrased by Headmaster Tom Clarke: ‘ As long as you don’t avoid the issues, adversity can bring people together.’
Wow. Rocket Science? No! Just plain common sense. Anybody listening out there?
OVERPAID
The Monday 7 February Kimberley Jockey protest is a very small incident and hardly a crisis in the bigger scam of topics and controversy that tend to proliferate and dominate the cyber corridors of the nation’s number one voice for the non-represented faithful, the Scot Free Racing Website. And we know just how punters, especially, despise it when the generally envied and well remunerated little men play the primadonnas and refuse to ride because of a seemingly few puddles here and there – well that’s certainly what it looked like on my television screen. To add to the potential irritation, the blazing Northern Cape sun shone brightly down on Flamingo Park, creating an even greater aura of ludicrous bemusement around the ‘dangerous surface.’
The eloquent local champion trainer and Mayor of the Viceroy Village, Peter Miller, spoke in the post-race interview after having – not unusually so – trained the first and second horses past the post in the second race. We didn’t know it then, but this was also to be the final event of the meeting. Speaking well, as he always does, Miller expressed his outrage and vehement opposition to the jockey protest and said that he would be the first to consider calling the meeting off if it was justified as he ‘loved’ his horses as much as the next man and would never put them in danger.
I was strongly convinced then that a man of Miller’s vast and longstanding local experience would get his way and sanity would prevail, and that what he was saying just had to be more accurate than the whinges of a couple of overpaid jockeys who chose rather to relax than entertain us. It was not to be, however, and the meeting was abandoned minutes after the Miller interview.
SIMPLY READ
The announcement was followed by a top-class and frank interview conducted by the likeable Alvin August, who interviewed Acting Chief Stipe on the day, Langa Douse. Langa, who? Well that’s what I thought,too! But more about him just now. Alvin has certainly come on leaps and bounds. For a guy, whose career looked destined for consignment to the dreaded Data Room circus upstairs or as Assistant Make-Up Artist down Rivonia way hardly twelve months ago, he has climbed his way up to near serious credibility and a respectable seeding that surely slots him somewhere in the top five ‘personalities’ on channel 232 for me. He really is living proof that perserverance and a simplistic approach pays dividends. He never comes across as a windgat ‘I am the man’ type with his tangible enthusiasm, disarming giggle and genuine smile and he is by far the most improved presenter on the channel.
FLAMES DOUSED
The man that Alvin interviewed was the 40 year old Langa Douse. Really not a grandstander like so many of the hot-air officialdom in this game – that’s obvious as I had never heard of him before phoning the National Horseracing Authority offices in Johannesburg last week – he was open and only too happy to speak to me. The University Of Durban Westville B.Proc LLB graduate told me he had worked for the Jockey Club – as it was when he joined – for the past fourteen years and had been Deputy Chairman of the Central Provinces Stipendiary Board for some three years. He never stuttered and appeared unconcerned about the usual bull that one encounters when interviewing racing administrators – like line taps and recorded conversations. There was no suspicious hesitation at perceived trick questions or use of political verbosity – he just told me simply what had gone down. I immediately warmed to the man as he chatted enthusiastically about the events of the slightly Manic Monday and told me his job was to ensure safety of horse and rider, while still ensuring that every effort was made to save the meeting.
CRYSTAL CLEAR
So big deal, you may say. Well, as one of the irritated punters who listened to the Tellytrack interview, I felt afterwards that the wool had not been pulled across my eyes and that a professional sound assessment had been made. Why? Because Mr Langa spoke without the airs and graces and self-importance that we are used to. He was transparent, appeared entirely genuine and stressed in the interview exactly what had happened , all the while reaffirming that he had wanted to save the meeting at all costs. He explained that the tractor had been used to roll the track but that the patchy areas and inconsistency of surface had been the overriding factor in a reluctant decision to abandon. He had done his utmost- switching the 1000m sprints to the around-turn 1200m. He kept saying that he had pleaded with the jockeys to see reason and to try their utmost and that the final decision, albeit a negative one, was in the best interests of horse and rider.
WELL DONE
Nobody probably really cares a helluva lot as to what goes down at an innocuous Kimberley Meeting on a Monday, but our industry leaders can, I believe, learn a lot from the Douse and August show. Transparency, clarity, clean information. No nonsense. No balaclavas. No waffles and cream. And magically this is one little crisis that disappeared without a trace and I am sure has been largely forgotten by most guys like myself, that felt the disappointment – and no small measure of resentment to the jockeys. Everybody came out smelling like roses and we have moved on. Maybe Mr Douse can put out a few other little fires?
