Greyville Turf - Time for the truth

I know every excuse under the book has been given for the poor condition of the Greyville turf. For me there can only be two issues that have led to this embarrassing situation and those are human errors or environmental issues. If the issues are human fire the lot, if they are environmental, be honest and admit to what the problems are.

The folly of selling Clairwood looms large when Scottsville is your premium turf track.

Joey Soma not happy about sending Graduation day to Durban

.....imo I believe that they did not build a non porous sub surface "wall" between the turf and polytrack....the water that should be trapped in the turf to nourish the grass surface is moving from the more dense turf through to the less dense polytrack and is dissipating right through to the golf course sub surface soil....therefore they cannot retain enough water to get the grass to grow and knit properly.....

year in and year out they have been trying to get the grass right, from selling Clairwood(biggest mistake) they have never gotten greyville right.

IMO greyville should not be called the Theathre of Champions with the track in that conditons.a complete cleanout must be down of most of the top brasss.


Great on Anton to give the feedback that he gave...shows that he aint afraid to say it as it is.i remeber a point were racing was stopped at greyville to get the grass right and then they raced at PMB...but alas nothing is getting any better.

what a disgrace

Imo,more thought should have been given to the changes in Durban.
Greyville hosting the VDJ and Gold Cup should have remained as it was.
Clairwood should have been retained and a poly track should have been created there...Then there would have been no problems.
Moving a meeting from Greyville to a Clairwood polytrack would not have been a logistical problem because both coursed in the same town.

Deva G it looks as if the focus was on spending....

The 400 big ones

Sad....Gosforth park...Arlington...clairwood...gone forever
Greyville and July and Gold Cup and traditions make way for money issues

Money is an inescapable reality that cannot be wished away. Courses were sold because they had to, but what they do with the remaining one's are a conscious decision that need to produce good results which unfortunately is not the case at present.

In the bigger scheme of things R400m will not go very far when business is producing negative earnings and faced with rapidly increasing costs and this will not improve until racing is promoted as a daily or regular activity rather than an occasional outing or attraction.

No customer growth objectives are defined and no team or targets in place to measure this very important element to racing's long term prosperity and future. If you don't toss any money at it it won't happen by itself so expect bigger problems for racing in future.

Until operators or the industry independently seek for actual racing solutions rather than only alternative sources of income the sports fate will be sealed and it will gradually decline to insignificance.

I have yet to see any evidence of racing being prioritised alongside other initiatives so won't be holding my breath for an improvement any time soon.

TUESDAY'S meeting at Leicester was abandoned after two races due to ground on the home bend being deemed unsafe.

Following the second race at 2.30, Magillen, partnered by Frankie Dettori, slipped after the winning line on the bend and came down.

Both the horse and Dettori were unscathed but following an inspection of the track the decision was taken to call racing off.

Slippy ground

Clerk of the course Jimmy Stevenson said: "The jockeys were unhappy about the pulling up area after the line following the second race.

"We inspected the track and there was a slippy patch of ground just after the line. We proposed putting the remaining races back by 30 minutes to give the rain time to get into the ground, but the jockeys said they still wouldn't be confident and at that point we had no choice but to abandon."

"It's a bit of a nightmare scenario, the rain coming when it did. We could have had 30mm overnight and raced, but a little shower after racing starts and we find ourselves in this position."

Second meeting in a week to be abandoned in the UK unsafe ground, and their climate is better for growing grass

Yarmouth has been closed for 2 years for a dodgy surface

Bob are you telling me that the GC directors and Kzn track managers have been over in the UK working on their tracks? :whistle: :lol:

Craig Eudey wrote: Bob are you telling me that the GC directors and Kzn track managers have been over in the UK working on their tracks? :whistle: :lol:

No craig that would be too hard work :whistle: