RACING- A BIG WINNER AFTER GUINEAS DAY

Racing. It's a Rush: PRESS RELEASE
Subject: RACING- A BIG WINNER AFTER GUINEAS DAY
Date: 27 FEBRUARY 2016


Turffontein was abuzz with atmosphere today, like never seen before for
decades, as a carnival crowd turned out for the Joburg Prawn Festival
meeting.

"The attendance figures compared favourably with the SANSUI Summer Cup. We
were not expecting such a turn out but there's no doubt that the Racing.
It's a Rush campaign reached thousands of new comers." Said Jenna Adams
from Racing. It's a Rush. "Wow, whoever thought prawns would be the key to
various successful events staged around the country so far. Now we know
what to expect as a result of this effort, we shall take every measure to
send prawn fest patrons home as happy customers and hopefully interested
horseracing fans. We run on course competitions and can therefore engage
with willing participants post race day about our future events". (Visit
itsarush.co.za for more info).

The first leg of the SA Triple Crown, The Gr 2 Betting World Gauteng
Guineas saw the Mike Azzie-trained Abashiri win the big race under a cool
ride by Karl Zechner.
Abashiri displayed his giant stride down the long Turffontein straight and
took the crowd’s breath away. He proved himself a genuine Triple Crown
contender, especially considering he would prefer racing over further than
a mile. He was backed into 2/1 favourite after looking magnificent in the
parade ring. He duly won comfortably by 2,5 lengths from the 5/1 chance,
the Gary Alexander-trained Champagne Haze, and the 66/1 shot, the Sean
Tarry-trained Malak El Moolook.

CEO Betting World Vee Moodley presented the winning trophy to Mike Azzie
who described Abashiri as “a machine” and the best he had trained since his
brilliant sprinter National Currency.
The deserved owners of the big Lammerskraal Stud-bred gelding by Go Deputy
are Adriaan and Rika van Vuuren, who are one of the biggest spending
couples at the South African Sales.

Earlier, National Champion Trainer Sean Tarry repeated his win of last year
in the Gr 2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas and this year did it
with a 20/1 outsider in Heaps Of Fun, a daughter of Visionaire who was bred
by Summerhill Stud.

Mary Slack of Wilgerbosdrift, who sponsors the entire Triple Tiara series
presented the winning trophies post event.
The race was a triumph for transformation as Heaps Of Fun was ridden by
S’Manga Khumalo, who became the first black jockey to become SA Champion
jockey a couple of years ago, and is owned by Nchakha Moloi. Heaps Of Fun
had genuine excuses for her last run and showed courage in beating the hot
favourite, the Johan Janse van Vuuren-trained Negroamaro, by 0,9 lengths.
The Gavin van Zyl-trained Frosty Friday finished third.

Racing was a huge winner on the day and takings and were up 15% year on
year.

Sounds like a big day sorry I missed it

Racing may have been the big winner on Saturday, but let's not kid ourselves it wasn't all rosy on the day. My son has pointed me to facebook where there are pages and pages of complaints and warnings about attending this event again. From these posts it seems that Phumelela were totally unprepared for the amount of people that arrived and people had to wait ridiculous times to get their hands on the prawns. It seems that a wait longer than an hour was the norm, some people saying they waited almost two hours to be served. Not a great advert and I wonder how many will return next year?

www.facebook.com/events/1982692348622437/?active_tab=posts

The success was their problem OTA, like the cape event they will learn from the mistakes hopefully

The problem for me is that if you are in line for 2-3 hours for prawns and drink when or how do you PUNT or experience the RACING which should be the aim surely? You cannot improve turnover if potential customers can't have a bet in-case they lose their place in the food line!

lets give credit where credit is due and say well done to phum on this day and also to racing its a rush ..

From the release - another very poorly written, shoddy effort - you'd swear everyone left with smiles on their faces but the Facebook page, where the most important people on the day aired their real views, says otherwise.

Reminds me of this -

"When the circus comes to town they have a parade down main street. That's publicity. Behind the elephants are the guys with the brooms and barrels. That's public relations."

Now, a fantastic idea/concept that drew however many people to the track on the day has alienated a new potential audience. Sigh

3 hours wait for food and some didn't even get any.Warm beer and kiddies entertainment rubbish.The worst organised event in the history of ever.That is a few of the comments on facebook.Racing a big winner?How can you say that?They had the chance to bring people to the track and they failed miserably.Do you think those people are gonna come back next year?

I wonder if the RA and phumelela boys rolled up their sleeves and helped serve prawns?

mr hawaii wrote: The problem for me is that if you are in line for 2-3 hours for prawns and drink when or how do you PUNT or experience the RACING which should be the aim surely? You cannot improve turnover if potential customers can't have a bet in-case they lose their place in the food line!

I agree 100%......imo, the effort is to be applauded, but the execution was by all accounts extremely poor......however hopefully memories are short and by next year a whole new lot of Facebookers will rock up....what is disappointing though, is that it seems everyone at Racing It's a Rush / Phum / whoever else was involved in arranging the day, are so impressed with themselves that they seem to refuse to wake up and smell the coffee ....or is it the prawns.....

The operators might find it a little bit more difficult to convince themselves that Facebook is just another lunatic fringe like ABC.
Their inability to accept that they are totally clueless when it comes to management is laughable,but I guess local racing will have to hit rock bottom before the right people are handed the reigns!

Good news all round it seems.
I have it gone good authority that if u let Prawns Marinate for 3 hours they taste much better.

Not so much with Oysters could kill u but Prawns Ok.