Phumelela to buy Greek racecourse ?

The Phumelela company apart from being providers of South African racing to the Greek national company ODIE, are also widely tipped as future buyers of the Greek race course, situated in Markopoulo Attica, plus the betting circuit associated with it.
The Greek government have expressed the wish to denationalize, for more than a year now.
Everybody in Greece is curious as to whether this is really going to happen and we 're going to have a Greek-South African racing authority, how and when.
Any inside stories known to you ?

this will be a first - they close down racecourses here

No sir, we're selling sir,but who knows,if we can make a quick profit by reselling,
we may just have a look into it?:S

mr hawaii Wrote:

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> this will be a first - they close down racecourses
> here


That makes me unhappy.
Horse racing companies have increased their number of outlets but the competition have done likewise.
Once upon a time there was only horse racing in Greece. To do something else, you had to go by plane to Monte Carlo (if you could afford). Now there are casino type games all over the place.

A big effort is needed to make people appreciate horse racing.
Sometime this is being done the wrong way.
Horse racing is about betting and thinking and it is not a Sunday attraction or a theatre play or a holiday resort. Those people who advertise holiday resorts want you to visit the place once and if you do, the advertiser has won his campaign. Horse racing is different and it is useless if we talk somebody into visiting only once.

They couldnae buy some Greek cheese atm

i give them some feta

They have n't been seen in Athens.
The French and the British have held press conferences.
The French have the most beautiful television girls (les animatrices Equidia).
I think betfair offers the best prices but I 'd go for the French anyday.

www.equidia.fr/

Pity I don't speak French.
They don't like to hold conversations in English.
I know some but not good enough.

The French tv program is space-age.
In UK tv they have a girl who reads the racing post.
In SA I don't know - only the Greek voice comes through.

Where they getting the money from to buy it?...here comes H&RC all over again..if true

Who is H&RC ?
What they say here is that racecourse installations and betting cicuit are two different things.
But some others say you have to sell both.
I don't even know what makes the prospective buyers happier and what really holds true.
They release to the press what they want and whenever they want.

The idea of building a race course so far out of town was disastrous.
We had good old Faliron and the day we won the vote for the 2004 Olympics (in 1997), I knew it was curtains for Greek racing.
Because the government had told us: If we get the Olympics the old racecourse goes.
In those days and up until the year 2002 we had no websites, blogs to explain the dangers and alert public opinion and the printed press proved to be errand boys of the government ministers (who knew absolutely nothing about horse racing).