Few countries have experienced as much political upheaval as Zimbabwe has endured in the last two decades.
Despite the turmoil, however, Zimbabwean horse racing has managed to continue against the odds. It is also worth noting, that Friday’s Gr2 Post Merchants winner, Splash Gold, is a son of former Zimbabwean based sire, Goldkeeper.
Recently I spoke to a number of Zimbabwean trainers and breeders to get their points of view, and how they see Zimbabwe’s racing future. Here are some of their thoughts and comments on the state of Zim racing:
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Lisa Harris: Champion trainer
The day to day running of a stable yard has turned a full circle since January 2010, when the country officially dollarized. Before, in the hyper-inflationary Zim dollar days, it was almost impossible to keep the stable running. The Zim $ was worthless and to simply illustrate this point, often whilst shopping for whatever was available, the prices would be changing as one was stocking their trolley.
Cash notes were short, as the printers could not print enough of Zimbabwe’s bearer cheques to keep up. The largest note ever printed was $ 100 000 000 000 000 (one hundred trillion dollars) Due to this shortage, the banks would restrict cash to $ 20 000 per customer per day – a loaf of bread cost $ 100 000 so it would take queuing for five days, the queues could stretch for two kilometres, to get enough to buy one loaf of bread!
As cash notes were so short, weekly pay day caused endless sleepless nights. None of the grooms have bank accounts and could only receive their wages in cash, and at times I was buying cash notes at 100% premium from a friend who owned a butchery and was happy to take a transfer. So if I needed 400 000 000 000 000 (four hundred trillion dollars) for my weekly wages, he would save the cash for me and I would transfer eight hundred trillion dollars to his account!
One of the most frustrating challenges was trying to get your head around all the zeros. Regardless of any math prowess, this proved a problem and as the computers could not process more than a certain number of digits, paying our weekly feed bill was very frustrating. Sometimes as many as seventeen cheques would need to be written out to pay the bill, all in the sum of $ 999 999 999 999 954,6 – nine hundred and ninety nine trillion, nine hundred and ninety nine billion, nine hundred and ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand , nine hundred and fifty four dollars and thirty six cents! All very confusing even for a rocket scientist! I recall one morning going off to the track to work the horses and my book keeper was writing out the National Foods cheques. On returning from the track, over an hour later she was still writing out cheques! Fortunately toward the end of the Zim $ days, the Mashonland Turf Club had started paying stakes out in fuel coupons, some of which, in turn we used to pay the feed company. National foods was my supplier and strangely enough they never stopped supplying me with food.
The fuel coupon payments added a new dimension to the business of training race-horses. As fuel was short, anyone who had access to it were in the pound seats, and the stable became a fuel trading office.
Happily, this all changed, literally overnight when the US $ became legal tender.
The land grabs chased away many breeders, the Armitages are just one example and were a significant loss to the local racing fraternity. They bred many lovely horses and like other now redundant breeders retained several fillies to race themselves, swelling the owners ranks.
I do believe that having lived and survived the hyper-inflationary days, although the industry is not healthy, we will survive. Stake money is not great, advertised at US $ 5 000 for a minor race, but in actual fact, this is a bit misleading, as the full stake is only paid out on 11 horse fields, and these are rare. Most races average 8 horses, and the stakes are reduced to $ 3000 if this is the case. We race twice a month and try and field eight races a day. Training fees are in the region of $ 500 a month with additional extra for shares of a jockey’s air fare. The sponsored races this year have had fantastic stakes. Castle Tankard offered $ 50 000 and Ok Zimbabwe put up $ 40 000 for their race. This has helped the standard of horse as the first three home in the Tankard were all imported from SA – Eight Street who was second in both these races is a former winner of the Group Two Victory Moon Stakes.
There are twelve local jockeys including apprentices and the three larger stables, ie Swanson, Peech and myself usually fly in a jockey from Jhb every race-day.
The breeding industry has obviously suffered due to the land grabs, but there are still ten or so breeders who this year managed to consign 95 yearlings to the National Yearling Sale, which was held in early May. The top price was US $ 16 000 for a Sobieski filly but several horses were passed out unsold with no bid. The stallion Kitalpha raised the bar here for the past five years but his re-export to the USA has created a vacumn and with no Kitalpha’s on offer this year, the sale fell a bit flat. A couple of unknown first season sires were on offer – Soar With Eagles, a brother to Archipenko and Gharir, a son of Machiavelian, whilst Tamburlaine and West Man have joined the local stallion ranks and will be represented next year.
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Jackie Cocksedge: Golden Acres Farm, home to Gharir, West Man and Tamburlaine
There are only 8 registered thoroughbred sires resident in Zimbabwe. Our broodmare band probably numbers ± 200 odd.
It is not difficult to obtain stallions. Breeders are able to purchase from overseas or from neighbouring countries. Horses can be flown into the quarantine station in South Africa, and occasionally direct to Zimbabwe and quarantined locally in accordance with veterinary regulations. Horses travel quite regularly between Zimbabwe & South Africa, mares for covering purposes on a temporary export permit, or stallions purchased or leased from South Africa.There are only a few thoroughbred breeders left in Zimbabwe. But what you must bear in mind is that breeding thoroughbred horses in Zimbabwe was to a great extent, a sideline to other agricultural farming operations. No one, or very few, relied solely on producing thoroughbreds as a living.
Staff on the stud farms were affected by an Agricultural Reform Programme. It was, in retrospect, premature. No one is doubting that a redistribution of agricultural land was important to the future of the country, but an act of “one fell swoop” that seemed to happen overnight, gave no one time to exit gracefully, or allow a transitional period.
Individuals were affected in different ways. Most struggled with the high cost of living as a result of inflation, and shortages led to price hikes. Of course, many were left without homes or employment due to farm evictions.
