Eskom's Load Shedding Turns Hollywoodbets Durban July into an Embarrassment

I felt sorry for the owners and trainers who brought horses to the track as they had Runners on July day.

Special occasion and once in a lifetime

Flights, hotel rooms, booked tables etc and NO RACE 😪

Imo - in this case I can't find GC the culprit - they did everything they could - lack of communication in the municipality / council - heads must roll, but probably will not; jocks imo not to blame, and given that the majority refused to ride I suppose they can't be expected to just believe the guarantees given by GC; the fact remains though that all this was caused by the council / municipality who switched off the lights when they should not have - as I say, heads must roll - but in all probability it will the wrong ones (if any)

I have listened and spoken to many people on this debacle. If the Jockeys had just been prepared to wait 30 minutes for the lights to cool down before being turned on again, it would have been exactly the same as a normal night meeting. The back up system turns on automatically ( less than a second but at a lower brightness)if there is a power failure and the race can be completed without any problems. CS begged them to ride but a few had apparently showered already and wanted to party and that was that. Would have just taken a 30minute delay. Conservative estimates are that GC lost over R3500000 in turnover. Owners ( paying fees everyday to race to earn) , trainers working 24/7 to earn, grooms losing out on their bonus are just some of the consequences of not waiting that extra time.Hard to sell a product overseas when this happens.

.....these days living in Africa we can trust nothing....besides GC has thus far a poor record of mishaps around back ups when left floored by starting stalls not working....on course tote systems not working.....TV studio going dark
...then endless delays.... light banks going down before days of loadshedding ....water pipes left open on tracks....f@cked @p.,,,tracks....so let's not gamble on what if's.....this country has many bigger problems than horse racing on a slide....and not having a go at poor Durban or GC....it is all over...we have no idea of what the much less fortunate have to endure.....and still lament about our trip to the July being derailed by spoilt jockeys and we did not get to see our horse run.....:sick:

The sooner Bortz and Hollywood take over, the better for Gold Circle.

I wouldn't have trusted that comrade mayor to organize a piss up in a bar let alone take his word about a racecourse being exempted from load shedding. What a laugh :lol:

Plus these so called political leaders were treated to the best food and drinks 🍸 from GC

Disgrace

Sammy Silver wrote: The darkness on course led to a frenzy for criminals.

I for one was robbed of my cellphone as a criminal bumped into me and stole my phone!!!

Seen outside Greyville’s main entrance after the abandonment of racing: fighting and AK 47’s



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Businesses in SA has had ample time to adjust to (or close its doors) the power supply interruptions of failing government. Hopefully the relevant stakeholders (owners, trainers, sponsors, operators, etc) will take the necessary steps to mitigate a repeat of this embarrassment.

HWB spends an entire year planning this event and have sadly been let down by some of the jockeys that they sponsor. Did the owners and trainers support this protest? Were they even consulted?

Time for Gold Circle to re-evaluate whether their back-up power can support 45,000 attendees on course.

Jockeys have and continue to push the envelope with absolutely no consequences for their actions. E.g a Jockey carded to ride a horse on the highveld decides it’s not safe for him to ride a horse when he gets to the start and the replacement jockey wins the race. There are no consequences for the originally jockey carded. The NHA and its members should be proposing and implementing rule changes to give all jocks a holiday following a protest.

Bortz and his team in Cape Town were decisive in dealing with the shenanigans of the Coastal jockeys. It’s time for owners, trainers and operators to take stock on these jockey engagementsand contractually pass on the costs to them for petticoat protests and hand down the appropriate sanction.