Re:Turffontein, Saturday 19 February

Bob Brogan wrote:

Anyone at the bigT ? It looks like a ghost town

We were there - like you say, a ghost town :dry: however there were quite a few cars in the parking lot so maybe there were many more officials and 'workers' (jocks, trainers, staff, etc) than the public. One positive was that the COVID protocols were handled professionally and speedily - our party of 6 were through the gates in less than 2 minutes.

We were on the deck and I don't think there were more than 100 people scattered around - not sure how many there were in the Elevation Room - the ANC had some or other gathering and when we came up in the lift and through the doors, we were directed to the meeting room - as if it was logical that everyone were just their for their meeting - and we were met with confused looks when we ignored them and proceeded to the deck - on 2nd thoughts I should have bought a t-shirt - let's not follow through this thought process :dry:

The food from the 'pub' menu was average to say the least - chips were hard and luke warm - would have thought that at least one could get decent quality due to the number of people - we also sat on the deck some time towards the end of last year and there was a marked difference in the quality of the food from then to yesterday - so I'm not planning to return any time soon

As to the racing, it started off well, but we should have left after Roha - only one of our party of 6 ended up on the winning side catching the PA - 3 of us ended up more or less even and myself and my son did the family tradition proud by contributing to the pools Have to say that the ride on the hottie in the 9th was questionable - how can one of the top jocks around get his fraction so wrong - and then the stable mate wins )

Still an enjoyable afternoon in the fresh air (just an occasional whiff from the rubbish dump) - and I think it should be possible (with the appropriate marketing and providing more affordable quality ito food) to attract the punters and their families back to the track - but it's going to be an uphill struggle - easy to break things down, but much harder to build them up again :ohmy: