Hi Dave
Thanks for your kind comments. Much appreciated.
The plan is as follows:
The Prologue to the series, which will run for 90 minutes, and which will outline the development of racing and breeding in this country from 1797 to 1960, is about three quarters finished (it still requires some recreated dramatic moments and has to be edited down from its present running time of 120 mins), and the TBA, which has sponsored its making, is looking to stage a pre-Vodcacom Durban July premiere, probably in a cinema, in Durban, around the time of the KZN Yearling Sales.
The period which we have called The Golden Age of Racing, from 1960 to 1980, and which includes such greats as Tiger Fish, Colorado King, William Penn, Renounce, Sea Cottage, Hawaii, Home Guard, Mazarin, Elevation, In Full Flight, Sentinel, Yataghan, Gatecrasher and Politician, is documented in the second part of the series, which has already been comitted to DVD, but it now needs updating with all the extra footage we have since accumulated, including Colorado King's and Hawaii's races from the USA.
Once that is done, we will embark on the final two decades of the 20th century, then the modern era, including the many overseas successes of SA horses. Quite a lot of this has also been edited but there is still a huge amount to do. Excluding the horses covered in the Prologue, which include the likes of Flush Of Dawn, Candican, Lenin, Moonlit, Eccentric,Zamora, Mowgli, Black Cap, Flash On, Nagaina Hall, Riza, Royal Affair, Spey Bridge, Casbah etc, we will be detailing the careers of over 40 horses, and anticipate producing a 40-part series to run on a (preferably free to air) channel which will not be confined exclusively to racing fans.
We also aim to release a packaged DVD series for purchase by racing fans, which will hopefully be available before Christmas of 2011.
Aidan, who trained as a film director, has always had a feature film on Sea Cottage as his long term objective. The inherent drama in Sea Cottage's story, what with the shooting and the subsequent court case, followed by his winning the Durban July in 1967, makes the Sea Cottage story potentially more exciting than the story of Seabiscuit, and almost on a par with that of Phar Lap. The problem is that it is a South African story and funding and international sales of a feature film version are going to be difficult to achieve. But we live in hope that we will find the finance to be able to do a really good job.
In the meantime, the second of the stories to be flighted as part of the TBA's build-up to the National Yearling Sales will be that of Gatecrasher, which features the likes of Herman Brown Snr, Michael Roberts, Ryk Nieuwenhuizen, Garth Puller, Ormond Ferraris and the late Tobie Van Booma (whose funeral, yesterday, was shockingly badly attended by members of the racing community, just as an aside). The Gatecrasher episode will go ouit next Monday evening on "Inside Racing".
Thanks, once again, for your keen interest, Dave, which is greatly appreciated.
Regards
Jimmy
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