Re:Flamingo Park officially gone

PHUMELELA MEDIA RELEASE
SUBJECT: Flamingo Park to close
DATE: Thursday 18 June
RELEASED BY: Phumelela Gaming

Flamingo Park Racecourse and the adjacent training centre in Kimberley will be closed at the end of July.
Phumelela had intended to continue racing at Flamingo Park until at least at the end of this year after Gold Circle and other sponsors offered to contribute towards the costs of staging race meetings there in 2020.
Covid-19 lockdown regulations, however, have thwarted staging racing at Flamingo Park since March and it is uncertain when racing will be able to resume there. In addition, the massive financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic on horseracing has resulted in Gold Circle announcing that it will not be able to offer financial assistance beyond 2020.
Consequently, Phumelela has decided to close the venue next month and several resident trainers are planning to relocate to other racing centres.
Flamingo Park was a valuable venue in terms of giving opportunities to horses not able to compete at other centres and races to enable such horses to remain competitive will now be added to the racing programmes at the four remaining racing centres.

Which horse can the turf club claim was Kimberley’s best?
Sligo Bay?


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I think the real pain will be felt by the apprentice jockeys - Flamingo was for years a training ground for claimers - I doubt these kids will be given as many chances as those trainers gave them - I watched really poor riders improve week on week as they were give rides in that place.

How are they going to cater for Kimberley horses? Each centre has loads and loads of soupmeat and the majority of low handicap races have had multiple eliminations since the start-up. This has been most prevalent in KZN, where the majority of the Kimberley trainers seem to be headed.

More meaningless words and little substance from Phumelela. They really are a special bunch of idiots. Good luck to the Kimberley crew, I suggest that you cut your training costs to the bone, why would anyone want to send you horses now you are out of your area of expertise?

Over the Air wrote: How are they going to cater for Kimberley horses? Each centre has loads and loads of soupmeat and the majority of low handicap races have had multiple eliminations since the start-up. This has been most prevalent in KZN, where the majority of the Kimberley trainers seem to be headed.

More meaningless words and little substance from Phumelela. They really are a special bunch of idiots. Good luck to the Kimberley crew, I suggest that you cut your training costs to the bone, why would anyone want to send you horses now you are out of your area of expertise?

maybe run them for 20k a race - limited to 60MR and below - they can run Greyville poly on mondays so the appies can be used also - 10 races under 300k so it could actually be a profitable meeting on the tote

Mr H my point is that there are enough lower MR horses in KZN already and they will also be nominated. Also bear in mind the majority of the soup coming in have higher grass MR ratings than sand so not too sure how this is all going to work out.

Over the Air wrote: Mr H my point is that there are enough lower MR horses in KZN already and they will also be nominated. Also bear in mind the majority of the soup coming in have higher grass MR ratings than sand so not too sure how this is all going to work out.

but there are only 4 yards I think going to kzn.. big yards like Human are not going and I don't think Miller (S) is going so not so many horses anyway - KZN can run Poly Mondays for minimum stakes and bad horses from other centers can be sent to KZN to race for low stakes indefinitely - Lensley is also gone to WC - With GC out they need cheap races for revenue

A Question, Cliffie Miller i think it was, announced in the press that Mary Slack and Gold Circle had agreed to save Kimberley..

What happened to this?