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?
I am not entirely sure whether it is envy, frustration, competitiveness or a genuine and general lack of delivery and competence that makes us racing folk such a generally unlikeable and patently nasty collective of people in reality? And I am well aware that generalising is a dangerous game most of the time, but if the cap fits, wear it.
This world is not the happy go lucky place it used to be for many people. The Sunday Times this past weekend speaks of the worst debt crisis yet, with 6000 new debt counselling applications being submitted a month. It tells us that more than 8,9 million people are trapped in a debt nightmare – what they call a sink or swim situation of a debt tsunami. The good news is that 50% of those people can work their way out of the dwang – in about twenty years or so! Most of us don’t have that long, quite frankly!
So what has all this got to do with you, me or horseracing? Plenty really .We all need to be a part of turning the ship around – relying on Phumelela, Gold Circle or some starry-eyed racing administrator with a half-baked plan is not going to do it at all. That is a proven fact – they have had the chance and they cannot. We can fool ourselves with Jockey Internationals, big race days and great new Sales venues and plenty of international visitors and freeloaders – but when the sun sets, the emptiness remains. Something deeper has to change.
We, and that includes me, need to start by finding a reason to say something positive and do something good – not necessarily for oneself – but maybe try doing good for somebody else for a change. It is ultimately an infinitely more pleasurable experience than knifing somebody in the back – and remember that bloody knife is quite difficult to conceal. The blood spatters – it stains your smart shirt – it stays with you. The fact remains that we are all entitled to our opinion and constructive and realistic debate is what could still save us.
So what has caused this emotional outpouring? I am stone cold sober right now but have just had another phone call about the Andrew Fortune ‘incident’. Besides making an irrelevant reference to his race-that is his skin colour and not the sixth at Durbanville – and his history of substance experimentation , the caller told me about another five jockeys who are guilty of the same alleged shenanigans – pulling up horses, punting. You know, the usual story. I asked for the proof. I am still waiting for it.
The Good Old Days
I was going through my collection of old newspapers looking for something positive to smile about. The Argus of Thursday 16 January 1975 had a front page photograph of Met Favourite Elevation being loaded onto the flight to Cape Town by Herb Azzie, son of trainer George Azzie. The photo was accompanied by a press selections for the big race –on the front page! The big race was run for a stake of R40 000 that Saturday 18 January and on page 3 there was a ‘Meet The Met Runners’ insert. The profiles and pen pics were accompanied by photographs of each runner. These days we have mostly fields and statistics confined to the one dedicated racing page.
A correspondent, who calls himself ‘Had It’ of Plumstead, writes in the Argus Letters Page in that edition. He states that he is a racing regular of twenty-five years standing and contends that the two entrances to the Kenilworth grandstand on the track side are ‘hopelessly inadequate.’ He bemoans the ‘barging,bumping and pushing’ by punters anxious to get up and down the steps in between race, ‘even at normal racemeetings’ and suggests that two more entrances should be built to counter the problem. He closes his letter by threatening that if something is not done to resolve the problem, ‘I for one am going to say goodbye to the course and partake in off-course betting only.’ He may have had it, but he was ahead of his time
While reminiscing I found a reference to a South African record jackpot winning dividend of the time. It happened at the Vaal meeting on Wednesday 15 January 1975 and two lucky ticket holders each walked off with R123 266-50. Both winners spent just 50 cents on their outlay. The bomb dropped in the first leg of the jackpot with Sweet Princess paying a rocket R168-60 for a tote win. These numbers are put into perspective by a review of relative value.
In the same newspaper, a three bedroomed house in Constantia is advertised at R34 000 or one could lash out for a Higgovale property at around R18 000. A top executive was offered a salary of R10 000 per annum and European Ambulance Drivers were paid R200 per month. If you were a ‘young man’, the Argus wanted you as you could earn R15 per week – but the ‘better guys’ would get R35 per week. A bar of toilet soap cost 12,5 cents, conditioner shampoo was 89 cents and suntan lotion was 39 cents. One could also buy the car of the year, an Alfasud for R2895, or for the more extravagantly minded and image conscious, a BMW 520 at R5550. The super-rich would probably have preferred a Jaguar Executive at around R11000.The all-in cost of operating a small car then was 7,382 cents per kilometre – which included, wait for it – all of depreciation of the original cost over six years, cost of petrol, licence and registration fees, insurance, tyres, servicing and parking.
The jackpot winners could have bought ten Jaguars each and still had some change.Do the calculations too with that R168-60 win dividend. Life is a helluva lot tougher and more expensive today than it was in 1975. That is thirty six short years ago and I don’t know if racing has another thirty-six years to live.
But let’s try and be positive and think twice before we say something stupid or nasty. And the next time you hear something on those lines, just remember the chances are that when you are not around, that very person is speaking the same junk about you.
