AND THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN?

Umlilo your 80% is so far off the mark that one can only assume that you are thumb sucking to make a point

umlilo - you have my sympathies. I say let the punter strike (non-contributor my foot! administrator, are you being serious). However, I agree on the Phum point - they will endeavour to enrich the stakeholders, at any cost.

cuckoo, yes it does rather seem a hapless downward spiral, as Garrick pointed out too, from more than one side. If my memory serves me correctly, the outcome of some research a number of years ago in SAF proved the Racing Industry to be the 3rd biggest employer in the country?? Surely the gov can realise the potential albeit in tax as well as foreign interest and investment.....of growing and securing this industry. Perhaps it should be nationalised (t in cheek)

Don.

tnx for some refreshing input; however, the sympathy is misplaced- it's the poor, gullible punters and the various other stakeholders who could not exercise the 'option' to 'buy phum shares rather than horse!'
Also, we in this industry tend to think with the left and articulate with the right (or vice versa!).
In one breath, we call horseracing a sport of integrity and honesty; in the next, it is a gambling entity where money becomes the criteria and crookedness pervails!
We need an open indaba to formulate a strategy on the way forward- if not, it will eventually implode, like the ANC in denial (sorry about the politics, but is a necessary comparison since they made the decision to corporatise the industry!).
I look froward to the day when a senior MP or cabinet minster (black?) will broach this topic and say 'Hey! Hang on! I also want to own horses (as against a share in Phum)!' Didn't politicians own racehosres during the 'apartheid' era?

Don just an after-thought!

Nothing wrong with 'nationalising'; the US has just done that with its $700-billion bail-out of the banking (baulking!) sector. What a lesson for socialists/communists!

Bush probably took a cue from former Gauteng MEC Jabu Molekethi who unilaterally corporatised the industry (as Govt policy), then, promptly entered Province into a private partnersip with a IT company (Capstan?)

Who says our politicians are slow thinkers? It took Bush 10 yrs to latch on to this bail out solution!

Can I laugh a little? Heh, Heh! Eish!!! Ouzo!!