Hilti wins the first Emerald Cup in 2005
Sand racing’s glory years in this country will be remembered as somewhere between September 2005, when the now retired Guilermo Figueroa rode the Oppenheimers’ Hilti to win the R200 000 Gr2 Emerald Cup for trainer Mike De Kock and September 2015, when Africa’s richest race on sand will be run for the last time.
The Vaal sand is scheduled for shelving sometime in October. That will leave Flamingo Park as the only sand venue.
Phumelela made the shock (was it really?) announcement just three weeks after welcoming SAP as its new partner in the sport of horseracing.
The Vaal racecourse’s greatest event, formerly known as The Emerald Cup, has thus been re-invented as the Supreme Cup presented by SAP.
Varbration wins the first leg of the Super Supreme Series
This feature will only have one running and will probably best be remembered as the culmination of the three-legged Super Supreme Series, which began on 1 August at Flamingo Park with Louis Goosen’s Varbration winning the WSB Flamingo Sprint, and has the Gr3 August Stakes this Saturday as a middle leg.
With Varbration not running on Saturday, World Sports Betting have shown innovation by announcing that they will award a R100 000 bonus to any horse who can win the last two legs of the Super Supreme Series. Before the Super Supreme Series began World Sports Betting put up a R500 000 bonus to any horse who could win all three legs.
Phumelela ‘s move to replace the problematic Vaal sand track with a turf surface is said to strategically be the first step towards the installation of a synthetic racing surface in Johannesburg.
The need for an alternative racing surface to turf on the Highveld during winter was the reason for the introduction of the Vaal sand track in 2001.
Vaal tracks
According to Phumelela, the sand track was dogged by a range of opinions and criticisms, and replacing the top layer of washed river sand with unwashed river sand a few years back at the request of horsemen has exacerbated, rather than resolved, the problems.
There was an outcry recently from jockeys, trainers and the punting public when meetings were interrupted.
It’s also dubious whether the Vaal sand track is environmentally or commercially sustainable into the future.
Clyde Basel – new man in the hot seat
“The best long-term solution is to replace the sand with turf and once the new turf track is proven as a racing surface, the way will then be open to replace the existing inside turf surface at Turffontein with a synthetic surface like Polytrack. Such a surface will solve winter going issues on the Highveld and lessen the pressure on the turf tracks and the number of race meetings lost to rain,” said Phumelela Racing Executive Patrick Davis recently.
Davis has been replaced by Clyde Basel as Phumelela Racing Executive with effect from 1 October.
