A Classic Double Century
LANCE BENSON: Mauritius horseracing supposedly revolves around big gambling and street corner whispers, but they can teach us a thing or two about being real and positive.
20th March 2012
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LANCE BENSON: Mauritius horseracing supposedly revolves around big gambling and street corner whispers, but they can teach us a thing or two about being real and positive.
LANCE BENSON: It is high fashion but quite misleading to speak of the racing industry. Industries surely have a saleable end-product?
LANCE BENSON: Phumelela are most definitely not adopting a shot-gun approach and issuing ultimatums to Grade 1 race sponsors. This is the word from South Africa’s leading horseracing operator’s Head Office at Turffontein
LANCE BENSON: Three cheers to the Racing Association for introducing the 25 year industry service awards to long-suffering trainers who make up the survivor base of this industry.
LANCE BENSON: The awesome conquests of the undefeated champion Black Caviar have again ignited patriotically fuelled comparisons between ourselves and everything Australian.
LANCE BENSON: After the first Sale held on J&B Met week, there was a tangible element of unhappiness with regards to the no nonsense attitude adopted in the credit assessment process and in the apparent very selective allocation of buying cards.
LANCE BENSON: Phumelela will no doubt be wanting to make an early impact in the Western Cape. While the totalisator outlets and the lot of the punter are unlikely to be high on their new-broom agenda, it can only pay them to devote some attention to this embarassingly inadequate aspect of their business.
LANCE BENSON: The battlers who spent pocket money on PA’s, and studied form rather than physics before even failing Matric. We idolised household names like Bert Abercrombie, Dana Siegenberg and Herbie Lasker . We eat, drank and slept racing forever.
But today we are just so horribly yesterday and out. We may as well change our Saturday routine and buy a second-hand fishing rod at Cash Converters. Maybe that way we’ll actually hook a Bass?
LANCE BENSON: Nothing quite rivals the J&B Met for the pure racing and social experience. The brand is so strong in fact, that despite the inevitable tinkering and tweaking, it remains a winner
LANCE BENSON: The Michael Roberts raceday at Scottsville last Sunday demonstrated that horse-racing can demonstrate the big ‘T’ with the necessary focus and effort.
LANCE BENSON: If you own or train a racehorse in South Africa right now, you should be asking yourself why the sudden concern, interest, meddling and apparent sabotage of a process and viable sales outlet that has worked like a well-oiled machine for two centuries?
In one of the most high-profile in-race incidents of the past five years, former SA champion jockey Gavin Lerena was found guilty of four charges, while Jason Gates didn’t escape punishment
Glistian Events’ Joao da Mata chats to Cape Racing Chairman Greg Bortz about the path ahead for SA horseracing
At the age of 93, Mr Ferraris is still active in racing as a training consultant, and he takes great joy in following the career of his grandson, Luke Ferraris, a successful jockey in Hong Kong
The starting stalls stuck on the Fairview polytrack capped a mostly forgettable week for South African horseracing when the Nelson Mandela Bay Racing fixture ground to a dismal halt on Friday
