Imbongi leads first leg of Charity Turf Challenge!

From Racing South Africa:
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Following last night’s victory in the Gr.2 Drill Hall Stakes run at Greyville Racecourse, the chestnut son of Summerhill Stud’s Russian Revival, Imbongi, earned 10 points for his supporters in Racing South Africa’s inaugural running of the Charity Turf Challenge. For fans of the Mike de Kock racing stable Imbongi’s stable companion, Bold Ellinore, clinched second place and a valuable 5 points. As third placed, Red Flyer, was not part of the list of 100 qualifiers, the leader board will reflect a maximum of 15 points if contestants had chosen both de Kock runners in the same entry. After each stage of the Challenge, the leader board will be updated and published widely.

Imbongi looks set to take his place in one of the three bonus point races, the Gr.1 Gold Challenge, run over the Clairwood mile on Saturday, the 14th of June. The winner of the bonus races will earn an additional 25 points and might be the key to winning the grand prize worth R50 000! The Gr.1 Golden Horse Casino Sprint run at Scottsville Racecourse on 31 May and the Vodacom Durban July run at Greyville Racecourse on Saturday, 5 July are the other two bonus races.

Peter Gibson, CEO of Racing South Africa, the competition organizer, was thrilled with the response to the Challenge, saying: “We achieved our target number of entries despite a very slow start which was not helped by last week’s shortened working week. This is a fantastic start and the concept seems to have caught the imagination of the racing public. When selecting their teams, entrants were forced to look as far ahead as the Gr.1 Canon Gold Cup run at Greyville on Saturday, 2 August and, therefore, capture the competitive spirit of the KZN Champion’s Season.”

Gibson went on to say that the Charity Turf Challenge had been introduced to achieve three objectives:

To assist in the promotion of the Racing South Africa Thoroughbred Expo 2008 to be held at Greyville Racecourse from 31 July to 2 August 2008
To raise funds and awareness for the African Horse Sickness Trust (Reg No: IT 2043/2005/PMB), the beneficiary of the 2008 Challenge
To enhance Gold Circle’s 2008 KZN Champion’s Season

Racing South Africa envisaged a series of Charity Turf Challenges being introduced to support the Cape Summer Season as well as Phumelela’s Highveld Feature Season.

For further information on the Expo 2008, please contact event co-ordinator Chad Cooke on 082 903 9818 or Racing South Africa’s office on 031 314 1799.”