LANCE BENSON: Champions are great for racing, but does it mean that prospective opponents would rather stand in their boxes munching on their expensive food than take their chances in the bull-ring?
LANCE BENSON: The curtain comes down on another tumultuous and testing year. While much has changed, one wonders if we really are any better off than we were twelve months.
LANCE BENSON: When Joey Ramsden showered the Cape Premier Yearling Sale Guineas winner’s podium on Saturday afternoon with the liquid lava spurting from a jeroboam of Moet, the fantasy fountain signified new beginnings and milestones in a few lives.
LANCE BENSON: Great horses, brilliant trainers and colourful characters and legends aplenty dominate the Gr1 Cape Guineas this Saturday.
LANCE BENSON: Mike De Kock’s entertaining post-race comments on Sunday included the silly censorship scissors from our Tellytrack. Oh so predictable.
LANCE BENSON: Derek Brugmann’s swipe at the lack of promotional and marketing effort of what was a high-class Kenilworth race-meeting on Sunday will hopefully have the effect of girding the lazy loins into action.
LANCE BENSON: Racing needs characters and real guys that we can identify with. Maybe Phumelela should consider giving Tarry and Azzie their own show
LANCE BENSON: Seemingly always on the back foot, but not quite scoring the boundaries. That’s the battered child of horseracing in any average week. The latest issue of Finweek magazine calls it the Sport Of Rogues, while Gold Circle Racing Director Graeme Hawkins has acknowledged that pleasing all of the people all of the time is ‘impossible.’
LANCE BENSON: Against the background of hype and excitement of the international jockey team vs the Springboks, it seems rather bizarre and ironic that a cash carrot has to be dangled by the racing operator to ensure that minimum field sizes are met.
LANCE BENSON: Hats off to Mick Goss. The Emperors Palace Ready To Run concept is without question one of the most professionally marketed events in horseracing in this country. While names like Igugu and Pierre Jourdan do it no harm, Mick has just somehow got the knack of doing things properly.
LANCE BENSON: Crowded racecourses, real life legends and the spreading of the racing gospel. Imagine being distracted by these and putting all our efforts into a positive direction rather than belittling and assassinating every Tom, Dick and Harry, when the opportunity arises?
JP van der Merwe is not the only guilty party in the matter. In simple terms, he is the only rider to have exercised the NHA’s offer of an Acknowledgement Of Guilt and moved on with his life
Andrew Fortune made it three winners on the Family Day public holiday as Tenango breezed home to win the Gr3 feature
The son of Master Of My Fate will likely side-step stablemate Eight On Eighteen in the Daily News and go via the Greyville 1900 and Cup Trial into the big one on 5 July
Outstanding colt Nepotism (Brutal) scored one of the most remarkable Gr1 wins by a 2YO on an Australian racetrack in recent memory
