Race Program on the Highveld

I just had a look at the program for June; there are no races for lower rated fillies over more than 1600m on the turf in the entire month of June; in contrast there are 3 divided handicaps programmed for colts/geldings over 1800 and 2000 on the turf; got to wonder about how the people putting together the program can motivate this?

Guesswork? Hit and hope? Good luck figuring it out!

All I know is that it is very frustrating; we have a filly that we would like to give one more run before deciding on whether it's time to retire her, and now there is no suitable race for her - we will probably have to run her on the sand which is not her best surface and will not really tell us anything, or spend another month's stabling fees until the first suitable race comes along on the Sunday after July day.

Phumelela needs to get a decent winter season on the Highveld, or they might lose more than just trainers

They have no sponsors or money for stakes.

oscar Wrote:

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> They have no sponsors or money for stakes.


Oscar, a sweeping statement. This can surely not be true... as they are a listed company with a duty to declare liquidity problems if they exist.... surely !!!

ismike they have been given already 16 racedays by GC from Cape which they need to find stake money for..Sponsors today are very difficult to come by especially for horseracing.

Think about it..if Kantor and Jooste were not in the game do you really think Investec or Steinhoff would be sponsoring racing?

Vodacom and J&B are different kettles of fish as the Met and July are huge "consumer" races..the rest are non entities as far as the normal consumer is concerned.

Dont forget the going is concrete in jhb through winter,so not sure what season they could have.Dont think people will risk their better horses on that sort of going.Yes the program is frustrating,but it does cater for the weaker horses that are prepared to do battle through the winter,this is their chance at a bite at the cherry,cause as the rains come,the guys step out the up and comers so the mediocres get left behind.Thats just my 2 cents worth.

I hope the noms increase now as the battlers in the stable have a chance with the big horses in Durban or being prepared for spring - Smaller trainers with weaker horses should race them now before spring rather than boxing them until summer when the going is better to give their owners a chance to earn -

Mr H, that's exactly what we are trying to do; we want to race our 'weaker filly', but there are no races for her, but plenty for the 'weaker colts/geldings'

Frodo, i realise the problem you have but each week i see 30 noms and only 10 accept - we need to ask why a 10 year old maiden gets into races when there are so many younger horses nominated for the same event and the scratch - why bother to nom if you are not going to race(I know the story about bad draws etc - maybe to prevent this we should only have draws after acceptance)

Agreed why nom and then withdraw haorse from a good draw?

Tell you why trainers are accepting based on the strength of the field cause they can see it now on computor..in the old days they had to accept or scratch without knowing which other horses had accepted.