sands of time

Ante-post disaster strikes when July favourite Empress Club is found to have a virus and is scratched from the big race… Controversy erupts when the owners of Transvaal juvenile Lombard Rate instigate Supreme Court action…Jockey Michael Roberts has a brush with death… New entrance qualifications are released for the Cape Guineas…. Roland’s Song comes under the hammer…The final issue of Racing Digest is published… and Jeff Lloyd is the champion jockey, with a new record number of wins: 313.

Empress Club tastes defeat for only the second time in her career, Basil Marcus wins the Hong Kong jockey championship, Stanley Greeff reaches a new milestone when he saddles his 2000th winner, Transvaal TAB announces new rules and host of exciting bets (including the All-Up), Michael Roberts, 38 last month, rides a 406/1 hattrick at Ascot and is installed by bookmakers as the 8/11 favourite to win the English jockey title with half of the season still to go.

Customer service takes on a whole new meaning when the Cape TBA introduces race commentaries on 087 numbers; Topsport introduces a new team of commentators; jockey Mawing and trainer Ferraris part company; Cape owner Adams takes the Jockey Club and Cape Turf Club to task; Empress Club scores her third Gr1 win in the space of seven weeks; and more…

Course records are there to be broken, but at Milnerton things are getting more and more curious; on J&B Met day, former Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith is on hand to lead in Ken McKenzie’s winner Karsavina; the finish of the J&B Met becomes a Ladies Final; and the Jockey Club offers a R50.000 reward for anyone providing information that leads…

The course manager at Newmarket is warned off, TBA General Manager John Kramer and Kimberley breeder Basil Benjamin return home after vetting all of the entries for the 1992 yearling sales, M-Net starts it new Parade Ring feature programme, E-Cape Jockey Club chairman Morum proposes to sell Arlington racecourse, and Lester Piggott comes to Greyville for an AllStar jockey challenge….