New Brooms

Lance Benson - Sporting Post.
New Broom in Cape
A Challenge Of Basics And Bridges
Last updated on 09 February 2012.

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.

It has never really been that fashionable to look after the foot-soldiers. In the pre corporatisation days of racing, at least the consumer had the beneficial spin-offs of two simply run clubs competing for his attentions. Besides that, gamblers had little other choice, short of having a few inoculations and driving for two days to get to the Casino in Maseru.
But times have changed – for the better. Or should I say, ‘bitter’?

Corporatisation brought with it an ever widening gap between the governor and governed. Boards manned by men who probably believed they could make a difference, have been living in cloud cuckoo land barking orders and issuing policy instructions to managers, who thought that the board were a bunch of priviliged clowns anyway. The management thus did little. They were also seldom measured.
In Cape Town, Phumelela ironically have similar challenges facing them everywhere else and while they may be inclined to address the perceived more powerful and supposedly important stakeholders first, they may want to consider starting at the bottom of the patriot pile. And deliver they will need to, with small field sizes, turnovers under pressure and a general lack of morale prevalent.
Simply really nobody has done anything about the customer here in ten years. And over this time, the service aspect has fallen into a black hole. The punter has faded further and further into the background. Through it all though life goes on and the focus always remains elsewehere. The Glamour always before the hammer. Bulldust baffles brains.

Let’s face it. We have elaborate racedays, a world-class Sale has evolved, we have champion racehorses and we have big name international jockeys visiting our beautiful shores. But try using the loo in your local tote. Or even worse getting a Soccer 6 timetable and a fresh cheese samie and coffee. Crazy?

And as correspondent A Popham-Lewis wrote in last weekend’s mailbag under ‘Cock-Tales & Racing’, don’t try and interfere when a few heavies from head office are there checking the cash and the paid vouchers. We have all missed a bet through their making an entrance at an inopportune time and the clueless arrogance and comical lack of interest is the stuff of a Monty Python script. That is no exaggeration, and they are supposed to behave like they operate in a service industry.

The ample feedback received via email and sms from my piece, The Love Of The Common People, in last week’s (SP 1805 ) issue has been both heartening and eye-opening and it obviously touched sensitive spots. At least I didn’t feel alone and I even enjoyed the hate mail suggesting I try a Virgin Active spinning class membership and join the HNP- I didn’t know they even existed anymore!
I should clarify again that I am neither a convenient racist nor a person who particularly despises wealthy people. I was actually fortunate to attend one of South Africa’s top mixed race private schools in the heart of our dark past and some twenty years before Mandela was released. And while I would not want to ordinarily say that some of my best friends are black, they actually really are. But it is a personal choice of how we spend our private time and I am not fearful of slaughtering the laughable sacred cows that graze in the pastures of plenitude. Some things just need saying.

Black people have themselves to blame. They have, in my opinion, allowed themselves to be used as a means to an end by this industry. They have sat on boards as figureheads, being forced into subsidised ownership, granted licences to train horses in a make-believe world with an open cheque book and even seduced and lured to the races with unsustainable side-shows that defy the remotest of logic. It’s all window dressing. You know it. I know it. And what may work for Brandhouse, does not necessarily work for racing.
Besides the understandable natural disdain arising from the suspicions and poor treatment, our Black brothers really just don’t appear to like horseracing as a population grouping – particularly sans the sushi, body rubs and music. And there is nothing wrong with that, for goodness sake . I don’t like Kaizer Chiefs. To each his own.

My questioning of the rationale behind air- bussing 500 Gauteng VIP’s to Kenilworth was not a racist jibe. It was simply related to what appears to be the wholesale rejection of the racing media and a frightening lack of care when it comes to the very folk that support the game every day. Some respondents blamed Brandhouse or Eddie Cassar, but charity begins at home and the industry needs to answer for it. The once-a-year reward of enjoying our top horse race in a pampered and luxurious facility should exclusively be reserved for those who have earned the moment and have given their heart and soul to it.

So many ordinary people have contacted me to say that they would welcome a chance to qualify for a day at the Met in return for supporting tote betting and horseracing. They are happy to be registered on a customer base. They want to be able to get double points for attending live horseracing. They want to be part of an exclusive membership that guarantees pleasurable, if not winning gambling opportunities.

The reality is that there is no known focus or plan in place to protect the dwindling tote betting turnover base. To my mind, a broad two-pronged attack needs to be implemented through the implementation of a practical simple loyalty programme and an overhaul and review of the racecourse and tote experience and facilities.

Casinos have shown that loyalty programmes work. Patrons are directly and tangibly rewarded for their support by means of a commission kick-back on their gambling turnover as well as access to preferential facilities and rewards. The previous effort by Gold Circle to implement a programme was an unmitigated disaster and frankly an embarrassment. The exercise showed no understanding of what it was trying to achieve and with whom, and it was tossed into file 13 as a costly practical and technical cock-up .
But maybe some good can come of that. Source the project out to a casino partner rather. Simply acknowledge your market on a mutually beneficial reciprocal basis. Give them what they want and where they want it. Like a bowl of sushi in an air conditioned tent on Met day even?

The loyalty programme should have as its main focus boosting betting turnover but it may also prove quite fascinating for the operator to finally get to meet their customer and find out what makes him tick. The stupid silly suicidal assumption that patrons that gamble are addicts who will return irrespective of how they are treated, to get their daily fix, is fatally flawed. Nobody is denying that an element of involuntary chemistry plays its part in this passion, but one can only kick a dog so many times.

Phumelela though are going to have to address their facilities as a start. And it may not just need too much cash either. Start communicating. Timeously and accurately. Then a few tins of paint, frames for notices, cleaning staff, and attitude turnarounds by management. The average tote is sub-standard. Dirty, unkempt shops, plastered with an array of notices stuck with prestik on makeshift notice boards. Inhabited by a cross-section of society. Plastic chairs. The racecourse public areas are in the same state. Just stop ripping us off with R15 cooldrinks, crap food and service that makes the local traffic department fines counter look world-class and friendly.

But the bull also needs to stop right now with the other daily amateurish small items.

Like when you guys advertise, hype and promote All To Come betting facilities into the J&B Met. Qualify it that the facility only applies in the build-up week to Phumelela regions. Then tell your tote staff. Maybe even tell your patrons too. And when Tellytrack declare that jockey Jarryd Samuels is replacing Anton Marcus on the Charles Laird horse in the Pick Six first leg at Greyville last Tuesday evening. And the horse subsequently arrives- with Superman on board!

If the Phumelela guys were punters and real racing people, they would understand the impact of that misinformation. But nothing changes. What’s the bet the same guy is still working in the Rivonia data room and he will do it again. It’s only a matter of time.

to me big P are like our government, they know what the problems are but just don't give a damn as long as the train keeps moving....

The irony for me is that WC racing are excited about being managed by Pumelela.
Anybody who has experienced Tellytrack,Tab-online,Computaform and the distribution thereof,amongst many other badly managed aspects, will be aware that "P" is a worthy case study in "how not to manage"
Time will tell ,but don't hold your breath!

And the article by Robin Louw on page 9........?

It didn't take them long to get "P"d off..............lol

I had a look in my Crystal ball and here is my predictions that will happen in WC with P in charge;
1) Durbanville will be sold to cover the cost of fitting lights to Kenilworth.
2) A sand or polytrack will be set up, I am not sure what they will sell to get the funds for that.
.3) For the first time in history they will have two race-meetings on the same day on the same track one will start at 11o clock and end at 16h30 on inside(old ) track and because of the lights they will then have a second meeting on the poly or new track, you see someone must pay for the WP racing, why not the punter.
4) and now for the cherry on top, history will be in the making, the Queens Plate will be moved to the 31st of DEC the meeting will be held under lights and to be able to attract international exposure more money and tv rights and more money the race will jump at 23h59 on the 31st Dec 2013 and finish at 00h01 on the 1st of Jan 2014. imagine how much money they can make with this!!!!

To all the trainers , owners and jockeys ( please note in no particular order of importance as with Phumelela nobody is important) welcome to the world according to Phumelela and GOOD LUCK.
I believe Phumelela is busy witha big sign board to be erected outside Kenilworth . that read as follows
"WELCOME TO PHUMELELA COUNTRY"
"Everything we touch turns into s.....".

The low flyer - as requested...

Incommunicado
Last updated on 09 February 2012.

Wikipedia defines ‘communication’ as the activity of conveying information. The word ‘communication’ is derived from the Latin word ‘communis’ meaning ‘to share’. Communication requires a sender, a message and an intended recipient. Communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Feedback is critical to effective communication between parties.

New Brooms?

With Phumelela taking the reins as of the first of Feb and our new brooms no doubt wanting to sweep clean, perhaps now is the time to address what appears to be a glaring hole in our armour and look at a few issues of good old communication.
It seems the new bosses have not got off to a particularly auspicious start. There was a board meeting on Tuesday where all sorts of resolutions were passed. Obviously, no need to share any of this with the general racing public – we’ll just keep quietly pumping our money in on horses, training fees, betting, etc – don’t mind us.

On Wednesday, another meeting was called for the trainers, but it was so last minute one has to wonder whether the planning can genuinely be that appalling (I’m allowing for the benefit of the doubt and assuming there was any), or whether the last minute notification was deliberate? The jockeys I spoke to weren’t even aware there had been a meeting and one would think that they are quite important members of the community. But it is not my intention to open an X-files dossier. I’ll leave the conspiracy theories to those who are good at it.

99 Lead Balloons

Even overlooking the quite stunning disregard for people’s time and schedules, to the best of my knowledge, the independent press weren’t notified or invited. To be fair, it was probably not deliberate. It is entirely possible that no-one even thought of us at all! But again, that should be just fine. I mean, it’s not as though anyone in the industry is actually interested or cares about the future, eh? Just go ahead and keep ignoring us like you always do. In the meantime, the Bush Telegraph appears to be alive and well.
My favourite bit of the week was a letter from our new head office with an, um let’s allow the benefit of the doubt and use the word ‘directive’ to the WC trainers to pull themselves together and ensure that they nominate and run more horses. No mention of concerns for the cause of the small fields, or any proposal to consult with anyone about how to mend things or, you know, generally encourage people to participate and help out. There also appears to be no quid pro quo or a counter offer of how to support and help our owners and trainers make this happen. Nope, simply run your horses folks, because if you don’t, we’ll have to review your stable rentals. I expect that went down like a lead balloon.

Fees, fees and more fees

Of course another shock to the Cape system is the introduction of nomination and acceptance fees. It will be interesting to see how much this motivates people to nominate and accept horses. Given that trainers can only bill those costs back at the end of every month, I expect that this might hit some of the busier yards quite hard.
So, on the surface, not a great example of winning friends and influencing people (that’s a literary reference for those who missed it, or think that I’m inferring some underhand dealing).
But this may all be good and well. We want our industry to be run in a more business like fashion and it seems that in that regard we’re off to a good start. However, we all know horse racing does not run like a normal business, so where’s the attention to the horsey side of it ? It shows a gross lack of thought and empathy to simply dish out instructions without consultation as to what the running problems might be. And I must confess to being rather puzzled by the dismal start as I have had nothing but excellent and exceptionally prompt dealings with Patrick Davis to date. I can only imagine that all the above are simply teething problems that will disappear as the new management settles in.

Some more definitions

I checked my trusty on-line dictionary which describes an operator as ‘a person who manages a working or industrial establishment, enterprise, or system’. Hmm, perhaps the term ‘operate’ is a little better? My dictionary describes that as ‘to act effectively, produce an effect; exert force or influence or alternatively to perform some process of work or treatment’. With the name Gold Circle all too easily adjusted to the more popular ‘Gold Circus’ it is perhaps no bad thing to rebrand. I believe Phumelela means ‘to succeed’ in isiZulu and one would think that Phum would want their name added to the Cape product at some point. However, it seems the WC is going to be known simply as Western Province Racing for the time being. Probably sensible. Best not to get anyone’s hopes up. And with the GC press release about regarding the recent KZN farce stating their hope that ‘the old wives tale that “bad luck goes in threes,” is now a thing of the past’, it seems the bar has been set achievably low.

Bad luck travels in three’s

With a Clairwood meeting abandoned after the first race due to a substandard racing surface (I honestly don’t know whether to hope that people actually carried out a pre-race inspection or not) and then some mischievous electrical equipment turning the Greyville starting stalls into shock boxes in the 7th race, one doesn’t quite know what to think. Last week you couldn’t buy electricity for love nor money down in the Cape, but it seems to be running free in KZN. How bout that?! The bits that receive rather less publicity include the fact that a horse ‘fell’(don’t you just love that term) during that 7th race from what looked to be a heart attack. The Stipes report may state otherwise, but given the fall, there’s no real way to tell whether the broken scapula occurred pre or post mortem. While it is impossible to speculate whether the electricity leakage had anything to do with it, considering that the heart is, in effect, an electrically stimulated device, it is not a difficult leap to make that the loose voltage in the stalls may have played a role. And by the way, it wasn’t just ‘a horse’, it was Jack Hobbs, a precocious son of Right Approach who was 2nd to Brilliant Cut in the Cape Nursery as a 2 YO. And one of our top jockeys suffered a nasty fall and was incredibly lucky to get away with minor injuries. But don’t you fret folks, bad luck happens in threes, so we should be A-OK now – ho ho ho.

Really? A whole meeting has to be abandoned, a horse died, a jockey had a near death experience and the response is ‘bad luck happens in threes?’ A friend of mine who has raised two wonderful children is in the habit of inserting the phrase ‘bad word’ whenever she is tempted to swear in front of her kids. Well, all I can say is ‘bad word’. Bad word bad word bad word!
Despite unsafe, uninspected (or simply unnoticed?) track conditions and shocking starting stalls (in both the figurative and literal senses of the word), just make sure you get your fields full folks. No slacking now, we have a business to run. Jocks, sorry for you – perhaps get some insulated, extra padded body protectors and you should be fine. In fact, there’s a company called Hit Air that produces body protectors that inflate before impact – perhaps now’s the time to patent something that is electrically insulated too ?!. Horses, well no-one worries about them, there are always plenty more where those came from. Owners? Too bad, so sad. Please collect your horses once the vets, trainers and operators are done with them. Assuming they get off the track alive of course.
Now all smile for the cameras.

We demand that our horses should come out and run and these are the sorts of facilities and service we offer? It’s simply not good enough. No wonder our best horses can’t wait to leave for greener pastures. I dare say much the same applies to our punters.

A for Effort, 0 for Execution

A fairly high ranking GC official once upbraided me for being so critical about how racing has changed and the fact that the channels of communication seem to have deteriorated so dramatically. His argument? ‘It was no different back then you know!’ Well, apart from the fact that I know differently, imagine actually floating that as a counter argument! Richard Bach once said – Argue for your limitations and they are yours. Well quite. No wonder the good Lord spares us from progress….

With corporatisation having neatly disposed of any competition and any incentive to strive for improvement, the rot seems to be endemic and on a national scale. Horses incorrectly loaded in starting stalls. Horses carded as maidens when they’re not. Equipment left on the track. A Met runner jumping from the stalls still wearing its hood. Sloppiness? Blatant disregard for health and safety? Or is it simply that the folks on the ground have absolutely no idea what they’re doing? And that’s (literally) at grass roots level.

Further up the food chain, even generous initiatives such as the substantial stake offered for the juvenile race on L’Órmarins Queen’s Plate Day are mismanaged. It was a wonderful initiative, but where was the consultation with the industry? Were the trainers asked whether it would be appropriate to add such a prestigious and tempting prize so early in the season, or was it simply rubber stamped by management?

The fabulous prize for the Jockey Championship is another example. It is wonderful that our industry big hitters are adding their support, their muscle and more importantly, their money to what is always a hotly fought and closely watched contest, but was there any consultation with the jockeys or even perhaps the Jockey Academy? While it is commendable to reward excellence and sportsmanship, a more considered approach may have been to divide the ‘stake’ to several places, or possibly award excellence in different categories – champion jockey, champion apprentice, champion work rider or even perhaps jockeys who had shown real dedication and work ethic with regards to number of rides, time on the gallops, etc.

Who are we kidding?

Another great example of communication failure in a different facet of the horse world is the practice of sales- buy backs. Sure it happens. It’s a fact of life. Whether we admit it or not, we all know it happens. And to be frank, it is totally understandable. A breeder who has spent the best part of R100k getting that baby into that sale ring should have every right to do so if the bidding is faltering a bit short of expectation. So what? If you’d paid for your kid to get through med school, you wouldn’t want him flipping burgers at McDonalds, would you? The issue is not so much with the fact that it takes place, but more with the fact that it is covered up and all the associated implications of fraudulent dealing, artificially inflating the value of the stallion and his progeny etc if it is registered as a bona fide sale. I only need to mention the name Devine Jet / Divine’s Jet / Divine Jet as a case in point. All that will all go away if the vendor simply declares it a buy back, the sale is not reflected on the sale aggregate, it does not enhance (or damage) the stallion’s CV, and everything stays clean and tidy. Crazy idea perhaps, but why the heck not?

Why do it?

A friend asked me recently why I am so angry at racing and, if it makes me so angry, why do I stick with it so determinedly? Firstly I was quite taken aback. I didn’t realise that I came across as angry (and now is a good time to correct anyone else who thinks that I am). So for the record, I am not so much angry, as sad and terribly terribly disappointed, because I KNOW we are all so much better than this. So why do I stick around? Because I’m stubborn, I guess. And stubbornly loyal. More than anything I want for racing to be better, to do better, to pick itself up, be a success and show the world quite how fantastic we are. We – and I use the plural very deliberately – all share this wonderful industry and we are all a part of what makes it great. Every one of us. There is no-one who is more important than anyone else and no-one who does not have an important contribution to make.

To go back to my Wiki definition – ‘The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Feedback is critical to effective communication between parties.’ If we’re going to move forward, we need to do it together.
So, we are on the threshold of a new era. Will the new broom sweep clean, or will we merely be seeing the same donkey wearing a different saddle? I guess only time will tell

How much and who bears the cost of the nomination and acceptance fees ?

soodum Wrote:

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> How much and who bears the cost of the nomination
> and acceptance fees ?


'We' (the owners) have always been paying nom fees in Gauteng - small money

For the record...P had nothing to do with the re-introduction of nomination fees....there were far too many nominations with no intent to run!