WHAT A DISGRACE!

Good man,Al.

If our racing operator was willing to spend a bit of money on marketing the sport we wouldnt be having this problem.

The national media (papers) would have been brought up to speed when the carnival started and if these tight muppets had placed the odd add, front page would not be a problem for such an international sporting achievement.

Imagine how De Kock, Brown et al must be feeling ?

Despite the individual efforts of people like Grunberger, their monumental achievements on the international front for our country largely ignored.

I enjoyed the article in the paper today on the Klerksdorp lawn bowling league. Much better than horse racing articles.

Morale of the story take up bowling if you want to be in the news paper don't become an internationally successful trainer earning millions for your patrons.

I have sent Carte Blanche a request to do a story on the Dubai meeting and the achievements of our sports folk and animals: I hope that I am not out of line but I really do believe that these guys desrve the same credit as our Rugby World cup heroes.

In my request I forgot to mention Kevin Shae' s win. I am sure they will get the message though.

Request as sent below:

I am an avid horseracing fan and feel totally disappointed in the fact that the media missed out on reporting on a very significant sporting event, namely the Dubai World Cup Day. The event has a number of feature races on the day and the worlds best horses, trainers and jockeys go head to head to prove their abilities. South Africans claimed a number of titles on the day.

The UAE derby was captured by Honour Devil Trained by Mike Dekock one of SA's leading trainers and a pioneer into Dubai and world cup horseracing. Dekocks other horse in the race, Royal Vintage captured second. This is a wonderful training feat.

The Dubai Duty Free a 5 million US dollar race was captured by Jaypeg, South African Trainer Herman Brown and Jockey Anton Marcus. It was a really gutsy win and the jockey nearly fell off the horse just after the line due to a saddle slip. What makes this win special is that the horse was formerly trained by Basil Marcus and partley owned by Selwyn Marcus which made this a true family affair. Many stories could come from this.

Sun Classique dominated and captured the 5 million US dollar Dubai Sheema classic. This was Mike DeKock’s big winner on the night. Sun Classique was previously trained by Cape based trainer Mike Bass who is the winner of this years J&B Met amongst other great achievements. Lionel Cohen the owner of the horse stated that this horse is probably one of the greatest fillies of all time.

The Dubai World Cup race was captured by the American horse Curlin and Mike Dekocks Asiatic Boy ran second. Another great training feat.

These achievements are significant as our trainers, horses, breeders and jockeys were on display for the world to see and we shone, we really shone bright and this after many years of isolation and extreme difficulty to get our horses to overseas races due to quarantine rules and red tape.

The closest I can come to explaining how great this was, was when SA won the Rugby world cup. It brought a great sense of pride to me and other like minded South Africans. It made me forget about all the negativity that surrounds us and brought a true sense of pride to my heart.

The rest of the world watched and reported on these events but the winners press (South African press) missed the boat completely. I appeal to you to produce a story on these achievements and broadcast it to the South African public. Please give our great sports folk and animals the recognition they so richly deserve.

There are many stories within this story and I am sure that your expert team of journalists would be able to find different angles and produce a report that would give the people involved the recognition they deserve and the non racing public great entertainment and a sense of pride in the achievements of their fellow South African's, people and animals.

I do recall Carte Blanche doing a piece on the Big Wave surfing champ from Cape Town, so I do not see why the story above should also not be followed up.

There are some great characters in racing and I appeal to you to contact some of them.

Thank you for your time.

very good lets hope

If they do contact me for more detail I will definitely punt the ABC forum.

True,the print media does not give horse racing the exposure it needs,even though some of them sponsor races.I suppose this time Mugabe was all the rage!

The major tv channels also shuns this sport, except for the 3 big races.
Perhaps its time that Clyde Basel investigates this avenue,considering he used to cameo on Etv.

Once again, our racing authorities have let racing SA down.

It (they) are responsible for this lack of awareness in the print media and general public about the feats of our horseracing fraternity.

They are averse to spending money to advertise and promote our racing in the national print media, as they are in maintaining race courses.

Their focus appears to be international screening rights, co-mingling and slots.

Our breeders breed magnificient thoroughbreds, our owners spend good money purchasing them, our trainers hone their skills to perform locally and internationally with distinction, we make our intellectual property available, big money is spent importing, exporting, quarantine, training facilities overseas to race and bring glory and distinction to our industry and country.

This elite group that were handed our assets have a 'marketing' dept. that is a contradiction in terms. Marketing ? What marketing ?

Now decent people who love the game, invest in it and promote it, have a dig at each other, while the culprit hides behind its share price.

I have made an appeal to East Coast Radio to do a report on their Sports Cage show and also appealed to Darren Scott who I know is a race fan. They generally save it on a podcast on their blog. I will post the link if they do make mention of this.

Contacted the local press to run a story in our weekly paper. Will post here if and when it gets printed. The paper is released on a Thursday

There was a report today in the Mercury on the achievements in Dubai. The report focused on Mike De Kock and mention was given about all of the winners on the day. I am still rather dissapointed that it was limited to the usual portion of the paper and not displayed in a more prominent position. Any way lets hope Darren Scott or Andre Bloom of ECR mention how well our compatriots did.

Hi guys,

Some interesting comments.

We at Sportingweb are keen to do an article on the success that owners and trainers had in Dubai. We would also like to have a look at the investment angle i.e take a look at how much horses were purchased for and what stakes they have made etc.
Also might be nice to do a feature on how to get involved in racing (ownership,syndicates etc) for those who don't have a clue.

We would post on both Sportingweb and Moneyweb so article would get good exposure and we could link it back to ABC.

Any suggestions or ideas on who would be keen to provide info please post on ABC or e-mail me brent@sportingweb.co.za

Nice one Brent.

Clansmen in the know please support Brent's efforts. With the link to Moneyweb, some may see this as an investment opportunity and may take up an interest in racing.

Please if you can act on this - the ball is in our court now. Cukoo, BDB, Puffin, Dynasty (the list goes on) and others will surely be able to help on the ownership an getting into racing side of things.

Brent I am sure that the trainers would also be able to give you advise on ownership. Mike Bass, Mike de Kock Brian Wiid and others have websites and I am sure that they would be able to help you with queries. Charl Pretorious (racing journo) would also be worth contacting. There are many more in the game that would give you the info you need including Clyde Basel of the racing association There are too many to list here.

Thanks for your input.