Chairmans Cup Grade 3 Horrendously Crap field

Grade 3 250k race

and the western Cape Trainers manage to get 2 runners and 4 walking dead to race.

what a joke

Why are you surprised at this?

Much of the South African racing industry is simply geared towards providing opportunity for moderate, non-staying horses.

You see this trend very sharply illustrated at the upper level with Mike De Kock's overseas horses - the locally bred animals start to struggle as soon as they bump international class animals from 2000m upwards. Most (but not all) of his success with horses over the longer (2000m +) distances has been with horses bred outside of SA. I see little prospect of him cracking a big one over 2000m + with a locally bred horse in, for example, the UK anytime soon. Possibly he may achieve this in Dubai where, outside of the latter phases of the Dubai season, the opposition has not traditionally been that strong.

Local owners seem reluctant to wait for the later maturing horses capable of getting a trip. Nor does programming really foster staying races. Chicken & egg.

Although I don't follow PE racing I have noticed that the new Durban polytrack does not even cater for races of 3200m. So future stayers have only limited opportunity on grass where the volume of events has been reduced. Compare this to the UK where a meeting (on any surface from grass to fibre sand) seldom passes without at least one 3200 m event and often 2400m & 2800m events as well.

The Chairman's Handicap - which used to be well supported - is simply the predicatable result from our breeding & programming strategies. Don't be surprised if they run it over 1200m in the years ahead. Lol.

Might change in a few seasons Oratorio will throw some crackers if given the proper mares imo

talking about programming I thought I better have a look at the upcoming winter season in natal and see how the program would be without clairwood this year..as I thought I would be very disappointed to see certain races having distances changed and also not following the same route in previous years and also most if not all moved to greyville with its massive draw bias..the mercury sprint group 1 has also moved to greyville which I thought would go to pmb...already I see cold as ice is going overseas straight away and one wonders if the other top top horses will come here for once was the best racing season in the land...

Pirates i was watching the match race replay again the other night,what a beautiful track Senor Santa ran on that day

Bob Brogan wrote: Pirates i was watching the match race replay again the other night,what a beautiful track Senor Santa ran on that day

I have a dvd of my filly true lily winning 4 at greyville about 7 years ago and the track was like a carpet ...

Bob Brogan wrote: Might change in a few seasons Oratorio will throw some crackers if given the proper mares imo

duke of mamarlade twice over ideal world and elusive fort should all throw horses that can go a trip...as for speed sires I managed to see some of crusades first foals and he stamps them and they look very nice

I remember in the 1990's Regal Satisfaction won the Chairmans Cup by a good 17 to 20 lengths for Mike Bass. Other winners I know in the 90's were Art De Vivre, Travel North, Cream of the Crop and a decade before the outstanding Aquanaut. Interestingly Cream of the Crop dam was July winner Devon Air. Cream of the Crop is the dam of Gerald Rosenberg winner Shes on Fire.