Phumelela release media re cancelled meeting

PHUMELELA MEDIA RELEASE
SUBJECT: Cancelled Durbanville meeting
DATE: Monday 12 March 2012
RELEASED BY: Phumelela Gaming and Leisure Limited

The cancellation of the Durbanville race meeting this Wednesday 14 March due to insufficient final acceptors has highlighted the need for the Western Cape fixture list to be fine-tuned with a view to providing an optimal number of racing opportunities in the area across the 12 months of the racing season.
Only 50 final acceptors were declared for the eight-race Durbanville programme and that was simply too few to justify holding the fixture, given that small fields across an entire race meeting impact severely on tote betting turnovers and diminish South African racing’s appeal to its many international customers.
Phumelela, which took over the management of racing in the Western Cape under the direction of Gold Circle KwaZulu-Natal on 1 February, attempted to save the Durbanville meeting by extending the deadline for declarations.
But that resulted in only a handful more runners and Phumelela reluctantly cancelled the fixture and simultaneously offered the day to Gold Circle KZN as an opportunity to replace one of the race meetings lost in that province recently.
Gold Circle was happy to utilise the fixture and created a race meeting at Greyville at short notice to fill the gap.
“Phumelela would like to thank Gold Circle KZN and owners and trainers in the region for stepping in so quickly to close the gap in the racing calendar,” said Phumelela horseracing executive Patrick Davis.
Some people are claiming that the cancellation of the Durbanville meeting is proof that Western Cape racing is in dire straits, but Davis rejected that view.
“The importance of field sizes, both in terms of tote turnover and international appeal, has been relayed to Cape Town trainers since Phumelela took over,” Davis said. “But despite this and the co-operation of trainers, field sizes remain too small, which historically has been a problem at the Cape in February and March.
“These months follow the Cape Summer Season and clearly the number of horses available to race in this timeframe is not in proportion to the number of racing opportunities. Field sizes are not an issue in Cape Town for the rest of the year and the aim for the Western Cape in 2013 will be to balance the fixture list in order to provide the right number of racing opportunities at all times of the year,” Davis concluded.
Phumelela would like to point out that the total amount of prize money in the Western Cape annually is guaranteed. Thus any stakes allocated to cancelled race meetings flow back into the stakes pot and are redistributed through other races in the area.

Reading between the lines,we could see big calendar changes?

Glad to see that it is now being addressed correctly. The trainers all attended a meeting today chaired by Brett Crawford. I still remain positive that if ALL the reasons / excuses as to why trainers are not currently accepting are visited it will be resolved.
Every problem has a solution.

I see that the Cape is going back to doing draws after final acceptances, from the Kenilworth meeting of 28th March. That should help the cause.

Personaly not a fan of it but if it helps them that is great. Hate running around the turn from a wide draw unless really have to or it suits the way a horse runs.

I don't know what was discussed at meeting but all these years Durbanville runners were low because ,as Craig said, it is no good to run a horse from a poor draw at the course. Poor draw even means from barrier 5 and up. Maybe a solution to do draws after final acceptances will help for now but is not a lasting solution.Phumelela will have to come up with a long term solution. If they can.

Of course, it is quite amazing how may horses with decent form that drew wide after final acceptances suddenly suffered a loss of appetite and had to be scratched...< But on the whole it seemed to work for them, out of season and at Durbanville especially.