The Vodacom Durban July has come and gone for another year. A dour Greyville was injected with new life flowing through its veins as it was daubed with a splash of the new red of the major sponsor. The recession was put on hold for a magical few hours as 55 000 people cheered, rocked and partied amid soaring tote turnovers and dwindling booze stocks. Oddly enough, as the sun set, things really looked quite rosy for a sport often at odds with itself .
It was a day of mixed fortunes for many. The glitzy and glamorous facade sparkled with brilliant performance contrasted by underdogs downing the big guns and tinged with a tragic twist as former winner Big City Life made his unscripted final appearance on the big stage. The amazing thing about these big race days is that the same old prescription seems to work every time and the house-full signs went up at Avondale Road on Friday afternoon already.
The despicable action by the Sunday Tribune newspaper to publish an undignified picture of the fallen star on its front page smacks of commercial greed and while bad news and drama obviously sells newspapers, they should hang their heads in shame. The irony is that they have a relationship with KZN horseracing through race sponsorship, and one hopes that somebody at Gold Circle has the backbone to take them on and hopefully tell them to get lost. Horseracing is under so much pressure financially and from a credibility viewpoint and doesn’t need friends like the clown who approved this little trick. The strange thing and even further irony here is that the Tribune must be gloating in all the free publicity generated by the stunt. Even the usually sensationalistic Sunday Times got it right with a balanced article that included fashion pics and some horsey stuff. This included a funny account of the shenanigans in The Miller Dark Horse luxury hospitality tent, where R1250/ head guests apparently banged on tables and threw bread rolls at the staff as their food stocks ran dry shortly after the main race.
The main attraction of the day, the horseracing, provided a mixed bag with every sector getting a shout – from the small man to the power players. Mr Universe Mike De Kock and his princess Igugu will get ample coverage in our pages this weekend but I just want to mention two small guys. Small trainers had their moment in the sun, with former Zimbabwean champion jockey Ivan Moore saddling a double which included a Group 1, and Phillipi based Carl Burger celebrated his biggest win in the Group 2 Gold Vase. Burger trains the James Goodman bred Grey Cossack and most of us would have sniggered at his declared plans a month or two back to have a bash at the Canon Gold Cup on Super Saturday. But that all changed on Saturday as the 50-1 shot somehow came back after rounding his field at the 2000m marker, to pip Joey Ramsden’s Predestination. Richard Fourie rode a great race, and commentator Sheldon Peters must have watched the replay wondering how on earth the green silks kept popping up in his vision as he called every horse around the Burger runner for about 200m! Local breeders won’t be advertising the fact either that three of the four Group 1 races on the day were won by Australian bred horses.
The Right Royal Affair theme did not make a serious impact from a television perspective. In fact the non-Tellytrack coverage by the SABC had its usual technical issues and was quite boring, with a studio background that would have made a broadcast from the container depot at Durban Harbour look quite glam. One also wonders what a difference a Dave Mollett or Shaheen Shaw in the hot seat would have made to the quality and newsy side of the broadcast. This is a horseracing event and just as Roger Federer wouldn’t chair a Rugby World Cup final broadcast, we want racing people to conduct the show. Darren Scott was a flop at the Met, and so was Saturday’s stand in guy – whom they insist on using even for the Equus Awards and other racing eventrs.
The innovative approach to this year’s big race betting options are to be lauded, even if they did expose the glaring technical chasm between Phumelela and Gold Circle. The rounded off fractional betting and the all-to-come bet variation have got to be offered across the board. It is just not right that punters in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal have got to play second fiddle to their Phumelela counterparts and by next year the national options must be equalised with the playing fields levelled. The six tote places on the July is rumoured to have worked well, but I wasn’t too excited about my R1-80 place payout on The Apache. It was a helluva sweat and in the blanket finish it was touch and go about thirty meters from the line. Mind you those guys who place backed the fifth and sixth placed Bulsara and Big City Life, would have been smiling as they held an otherwise losing, winning ticket. And will the operators declare their ‘contribution’ chip-in from their takeout. Those sums still befuddle and I would like to see that it wasn’t just a marketing ruse designed to create a warm glow amongst customers.
It may not be important in the bigger picture, but I noted the refreshingly relaxed and tangibly down to earth approach of new Gold Circle Chairman Robert Mauvis, who officiated at the main race jockey introductions and the awards ceremony with the demeanour of a man seemingly at ease with himself. His body language sent the message that this was not a ‘do you know who I am’ moment and it was not about him. His broad smile and Durban surfer sunglasses on the forehead, as he warmly and casually shook hands with the riders and rearranged trophies on the table, showed that he was focussed on the occasion and the formalities at hand. The energy, humility and informality projected by Mr Mauvis is in stark contrast to the stiff necked ‘I’m the man’ approach of yore and while I don’t know much about him other than that he runs an extremely successful restaurant in Umhlanga Rocks, he could be the architecht to panelbeat superiority attitudes and get the gods closer to the masses. Let’s hope so.
