another gold circus disgrace

Never said I would'nt rather race in Phum country.Their big advantage in all business is"SIZE COUNTS"
The Cape is not a shit place to grow your young horses,every year JHB are the big buyers at National Sales,yet every year the Cape cleans up in the KZN season.Horses do well in 2 places PE and CT.Best for young horses

None of which changes the simple fact that one operator puts its stakes up regularly and the other does not. I have no doubt that there are good reasons for this, but it doesn't change anything. P centres are becoming ever more attractive viz-a-viz GC centres. The whys and hows are another issue, but they don't change the bottom line.

Furthermore, if (let's say) PE is less vulnerable to bad weather than Durban, there's another reason to ship horses to the Eastern Cape. Whether it is anybody's fault or not, per se, owning horses in GC centres is becoming less and less attractive than the alternative.

As I say, the reasons why are not really relevant.

Magic..which management team actually cares mate??

Lets wait till they have to retrench then we might hear from the usual disgruntled ex=emoployee what actually went on behind closed doors.

Agreed, Oscar. In the meantime I would rather win a race in Jhb than anywhere else because the stakes are the best in the country. The fact that I live in Durban is irrelevant.

I have never (and I mean never) seen a horse in which I have an interest work, and I have not been to either Summerveld or Ashburton (both training centres where Hollywood presently has horses) since 2003. I bought a yearling on the 2007 National yearling sale that is now an unraced 3yo. I have not seen him in the flesh since the sale, and, yes, he is just up the road at Summerveld.

In other words, I (as part of Hollywood and in my earlier capacity as a personal owner) try and place horses where I think they have the best chance of making the most money. Nothing else is particularly relevant in my life as an owner.

Others are obviously free to view the whole experience of racehorse ownership in a different light. Nor did I say that the Cape is a shit place to raise horses. Hollywood's band of five broodmares resides at Arc-En-Ciel, near Wellington. It is undoubtedly one of the best places in the world to raise young horses. However, from a financial point of view, unless your horse can win big races it is a rather daunting place to keep them in training. That said, we have one 3yo (New Domina) in training in Cape Town, with a homebred 2yo filly (still on the farm and by a mile the "best bred" horse we possess - by Jet Master, no less, out of a Black type winning mare) likely to stay in the Western Cape as well.

If Cape Town had Joburg's financial resources it would be THE place to race, no doubt about it! If on top of that PE had the same stakes as Durban then my "dream world" of racing would be complete.

I believe the first thing any owner should accept is that if he wants to make money he should not be buying a racehorse. Full Stop!
Horses are for fun like a yacht, golf etc they cost money but give great pleasure.
Why own a horse? for pleasure.pleasure,and more pleasure when your horse happens to win.Be grateful as there are many owners out there who battle to own a winner.
As regards GC and PH the reason they are so badly run is that they have no competion and nobody ever gets canned for non performance but whats any different in most of the corporates in the RSA.
The banks in the USA have laid off about 10000 but not one executive as per CNN yesterday.
But now watch this space and see what happens next week.
By the way I understand prices are down on the RTR sale at Durbanville this AM

THIS IS AN ISSUE THAT IS NOT ONLY FRUSTRATING TO THE OWNERS TRAINERS BUT ALSO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD NOT SO WELL OFF JOCKEYS. AT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR RACING IN DURBAN IS TERRIBLY FRUSTRATING. WHAT I FAIL TO UNDERSTAND IS WHY GOLD CIRCLE DO NOT SET ASIDE RESERVE DAYS FOR MEETINGS AND HOW SOME MEETINGS ARE STOPPED AT THE WHIM OF THE RIDERS EVEN WHEN CONDITIONS HAVE REMAINED THE SAME BUT SUDDENLY THE LAST RACE IS ABANDONED BECAUSE THE PA AND PICK SIX HAVE BEEN RUN. NO ONE LIKES TO BE CRITICIZED ALL THE TIME SO PERHAPS THIS IS A CHALLENGE TO GOLD CIRCLE TO PUT A TEAM TOGETHER TO PUT SOME RULES AND PLAN IN PLACE TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUES AT HAND.
1. RESERVE DAYS
2. ONCE RACING STARTS UNLESS MORE RAIN HAPPENS ALL RACES SHOULD BE COMPLETED, IF THIS CANNOT BE GUARANTEED REVERT TO POINT 1.
3. HORSES BASED AT SUMMER-VELD SEEM TO BE AT A DISADVANTAGE WHAT IS BEING DONE TO ADRESS THIS.
4.WHAT ABOUT TURNING SCOTTSVILLE INTO AN ALL WEATHER TRACK AND HOW COULD THIS BE ACHIEVED.

HOPE SOMEONE FROM GOLD CIRCLE IS READING THIS SITE.

Um, lower case please, next time. All capitals is called "shouting" and is hard to read.
Ta.

sorry about the upper case ! Yip it is the fatboy you thinking of I am pretty sure the silence will continue, I fear the old saying that the grass is not greener may well be true in this case.

Fatboy, what is a reserve day and how do you set it aside?

The idea is to either plan that if a race is not fit to run two days later it could be run ( either at same track or another ) this would not solve all the issues but at least it gives the trainers, jockeys and owners an opportunity to race its not full proof but gives greater clarity to all. If the powers that be believe that the surface is not good enough to last the day a decision can then be made to only race exotics in that way you have less uncertainty

Carrying meetings forward is what used to happen when we raced 4 times a week, so your idea is to go back and do what we used to do after we decided not to do that anymore?

I'm not pro-establishment at all, but do you know why the decision was made by all precisely NOT to do that?

(when racing was run like an owner's club, it was thought it should be run like a business...now that it's run like a business, it's thought it should be run like a club (or plan B:))

not all change is for the good as a businessman myself getting back to basics is most often the best way to go I would also think looking after the product is the most important thing to do so in this case I would think back to the future is the way to go,