Congratulations Phumelela and Sansui. The Summer Cup afternoon was a first-class entertainment treat that appeared to go off without a hitch. For this cynical couchbound coconut, it was an incident-free afternoon of which we should really be able to enjoy many more. Maybe we are expecting too much but hopefully a few aspects are adopted as standard for big days like the J&B Met and the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate. The starting point could be the limited gaps between race-times and banning the use of irritating know-it-alls.
It has become a very real fact of life that I have adopted the role of a devil’s advocate in a system that forces one to take sides – in fact there is a choice of about four teams at the moment depending on who is talking to you, what you dared say recently, where you may live or what your aspirations of power may include. For those holding power, it may be astonishing to learn that I don’t make the stories up – all my ramblings are based on true and actual events and names and places are not changed. I sit down in front of the Telly on any given day with a cop of tea and my well-worn notebook and Phumelela, Gold Circle and Tellytrack provide me with the ample material for the next episode of my weekly soapie, ‘The Days Of Blunder’. The errors are pretty predictable and seldom ever remedied largely as a result of the ‘ you’re either with us or without us’ policy adopted by most in the halls of power. The constructive criticism irritates the life out of them I know and then they fake the ‘water off a duck’s back syndrome’ and call me silly rude names rather than picking up the phone and sorting out the issue. It makes them feel better I suppose, but with the uncertainty and cracks appearing in longstanding relationships, I do enjoy a fair amount of feedback and support from the unlikeliest quarters.
THE GOOD
Clyde Basel has certainly added value and a new dimension to race sponsorship in Phumelela country. Whether you love him or hate him or have questions that are unanswered on a variety of issues – just go to the Scottfree Racing Website to hear that he has his detractors – who hasn’t come to think of it? Whatever, he sure as sin has made a helluva difference to the general Phumelela raceday show and this was demonstrated in no uncertain terms on Saturday. The pre-race build-up was over the top – just what any self-respecting sponsor would demand – and the whole show was well choreographed, branded to death and beyond, and even Sansui Chairman David Sussman was uncharacteristically gushing and positive in his praise of the fledgeling partnership. I believe that Turffontein had more people on track than seen in decades and while it may be early days to go calling this a turning point, it is great days like these on a more regular scale that could yet resurrect the sinking ship. The outstanding quality of the horseracing would have been covered in other pages in this issue but it was also a pleasure not to have some nattily dressed knowledgeable buddies of the presenters sitting on couches and showing how little they know about so much, while making personal private jokes amongst themselves. Let’s hope that a similar format is adopted for the J&B Met and that the gaps between races are are limited. This kept the show interesting and alive and maintained interest for me personally throughout a long day – even though many novice viewers on Supersport must have been thinking that winning on the horses is better than working for a living after Vee Moodley made winning a R45 000 quartet look like childs play. Hopefully they realized that he actually tipped Bulsara and went on about the De Kock runners before boxing what sounded like the entire field in the quartet. Nobody said it wasn’t a mug’s game this and if marketing and excitement is what its all about then the Basel and Moodley partnership may well have converted a few Supersport viewers looking for a different kind of thrill. Who knows?
This show has raised the bar in many ways for the J&B Met and even the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate (read the Louw Flyer ) – even if just from the television angle. If I was the boss of J&B or Brandhouse or L’Ormarins I’d be asking a few serious questions about television air-time and catchy theme tunes.
We all know that the Met is a century ahead of anything that Phumelela could achieve on Saturday but maybe Gold Circle should get Mr Basel on their side and get him to co-ordinate the entire extremely vital television show. He certainly seems to have a lot more influence on air-time and compliance at Tellytrack than anybody in the Western Cape. Give credit where it is due. Well done again, Mr Basel.
THE BAD
Gold Circle’s apparent handling of their Telkom line problem on their Western Cape Telebet number is just a small example of how they treat their customers like disposable commodities. I must have had 6 calls in the past week complaining about the fact that the line was unavailable for over a week and a half with no communication whatsoever – although in their defence I recall seeing a slide a few Saturdays ago on Tellytrack informing customers of the problem. Now anybody can excuse the problem if it has anything to do with the not so well-oiled machine that is Telkom. But why provide your customers with an alternate number in another province or worse still, a cell-phone number? Are they making the assumption that everybody uses a cellphone to call through their bets? It was the email that I received from a pensioner – a former Gold Circle employee in fact – who said that she has a subsidized Telkom line facility which gives her free calls to landlines that she uses to phone Tellytrack every day to place her bets., that has prompted me to mention this. After switching to the number provided , she learnt to her horror that these are in fact cell-phone calls and billable. She also mentions that many of the calls that she makes are unnecessary lengthened by the fact that the Telebet operator gets it wrong or doesn ‘t understand the bet request. When she phoned to draw the cell-phone issue to their attention she was told that they didn’t know how long it would still take ( as I go to print I have checked that it is now working) and that they couldn’t do anything more for her. Customer apathy dictates that a simple warning that it was a cell-phone number and a press release shown regularly on Tellyttrack, may have been the right way to handle this relatively minor issue.
JOCKEYS PAY – A THOUGHT
With horseracing in the doldrums, we probably should be looking at Executive salaries and general non-performance but are our jockeys also not draining the system more than they should be? As a punter, I probably think from the pocket more than I should be, but I get frustrated week in and week out by some strange riding antics and clown-like judgement on both fancied and unfancied horses. Through it all , the jockeys get between 7 and 10% of the stake earned by their mount and they also receive a riding fee, which I believe is around R660 a mount – payable unconditionally if they win, lose or mess up entirely.
As owners are the only stakeholders in racing having been called upon recently to cut their cloth, why should the jockeys not be the next interest group to put something back? Why not start by slashing the riding fee for sixth place and worse to a more realistic R250 per mount? Think about it – why should a jockey who rides seven unplaced horses twice a week in one centre for a month, earn over R30 000 in that month? Just work out exactly how many hours he will work to earn that – and that includes riding a bit of work. Rewarding non-performance and mediocrity defies logic – except possibly in horseracing – and the savings in the Western Cape alone could be sizeable. These savings could be put back into stakes and owner’s pockets and if done countrywide the figures could start making a difference.
There are obviously pros and cons and cutting payments are always a sensitive issue – but it may just prove an incentive to jockeys to start putting more effort in and could also mean that the riding opportunities would be better spread between the top guys and the average guys. That is, the average guys may get more of the average rides, the top guys will take less of the average rides and the moderate jockeys will disappear and go and get themselves a real job.
That will mean their days of earning R15 000 while riding 25 horses a month in one centre and spending most days playing TV games, on the beach or running their own businesses with horseracing’s assistance, would come to an end.
I just feel that the core of dissent and anger in this industry stems from the many privilege and fiscal imbalances that exist – the owners just pay and pay and pay while they provide the tools for the show – the grooms earn nothing – the trainers are somewhere in between – the racing executives, the least stressed of the lot, have got the best jobs – with the jockeys earning the good bucks. Maybe I have it wrong – but it would be great to get some feedback from the likes of Eric Fordred and Tex Lerena. And from a few hard done by owners.
