The RIDER Cup

The Rider Cup comes to Greyville on Saturday, 18 July 2015, when Gold Circle will stage an Interprovincial Jockeys’ Challenge on Mercury Sprint (Gr 1) Raceday.

“This is something we have wanted to do for a while now,” said Racing and Marketing Executive Graeme Hawkins. “We love the idea of 12 of South Africa’s top jockeys doing battle over a four-race competition. The Cape, Gauteng and KZN will each be represented by four of their leading riders in what is intended to become an annual attraction,” added Hawkins.

“We need names for each of the “franchises” and to add further public interest we are going to run a competition through our Racing App to see what comes up! We clearly can’t use the rugby or cricket names and hopefully something really creative and catchy will come out of the competition. Mystery prizes await the fans whose names for each Province are ultimately chosen. Details of the competition will be announced in due course.”

“Teams will be chosen using the National Log as at the end of June 2015 as a guide and the Interprovincial Rider Cup is sure to provide a fitting backdrop for the all-important WFA Grade 1 Mercury Sprint,” concluded Hawkins.

Really impressed with Gold Circle. Trying to bring new ideas to the game. Also a pleasure visiting Greyville at the Members Room where you can get a quality Curry and Rice for R55 and a Coke for R11.

Wow...no East Cape invite....are we not a province of South Africa. Our home based jocks like Wayne Agrella, Gift Funeka, Charles Ndlovu, Sandile Kathi, Stallone a Naidoo, Barend Vlooh etc will hold themselves up anywhere...

An absolute disgrace that they not even thought of by Gold Circle.
From Mark

Where is is the gold circle supporters .Not a word said !!!!

Let it have been the RA or Larry then all would have had there "daggers " out..

Edit

PE and Western Cape clumped together

Where did you come from?? How do you call it an Interprovincial??

East cape and Western cape are two vastly different, huge provinces.....how on earth do you put them together?
There are 1000horses in training in the EC, we deserve our own team. We are East Cape racing not Western Cape or Kenilworth racing.
The most short sighted B....S....ever.
If Gold Circle can't afford to invite an extra team I will pay for our boys to be represented there.

Mark Sham

Bob ...Where is Glen's post and who is he ?????
Why has it gone.??????
Pressure from the Gold Cirle team ..?????????
Mark

No no pressure, i never had permission to post ,thought he had sent me a reply

Marcus, he says hes sent to GH for his attention

Have to apoligize for getting him mixed up

I agree with the Shams here.....No reason on this planet why an important racing jurisdiction such as PE who has many live in jocks shouldn't get representation.

Hopefully sanity will prevail here.

From GH

Graeme Hawkins
Racing & Marketing Executive

“We initially considered including the Eastern Cape as a separate province and having four teams of three riders (instead of 3 teams of four riders) but in truth the top 6 jockeys in the Eastern Cape, as per the current East Cape log, are all “out-of-towners”. We therefore decided to go the latter route, leaving the door open for an East Cape based jockey to be included with the Cape team, should his/her performance warrant inclusion.”

“With due respect to the leading East Cape-domiciled jockeys, to have gone with four teams of three riders would have meant excluding a top jockey from each of the “main” centres – e.g. riders such as Greg Cheyne (who ironically heads the EC log), Weichong Marwing and Sean Cormack could be sitting on the side lines to accommodate jockeys from the East Cape whose overall records are not comparable.”

“The Rider Cup Interprovincial Challenge is intended to be an annual event on Mercury Sprint day in the height of Champions Season and we are committed to showcasing 12 of South Africa’s top jockeys in an ultra-competitive environment. Determining the Cape to be a single province does keep the door open for any future star from the Eastern Cape being invited to participate.”

I agree with Hawkins. With all due respect, the EC based jockeys are B division and the names Greg Cheyne, Weichong Marwing and Sean Cormack are far more capable than the PE boys.

A suggestion to Mark Sham as I like this support of "his" boys, why not approach Phumelela and try arrange your own provincial at a later stage in PE where home advantage may assist.

Why not just have the top 12 riders full stop then?


Strydom
Bling
Yeni
Cheyne
Lerena
Cormack
Delpech
Marcus
Danielson
JP VAN DER MERWE
FAYEDERBE
Fourie

as they stand in the log today