This letter is an answer to accusations against me on this thread
Here is the facts, and I want to say everything I say here can be backed up by documents to prove that this truth.
I was not warned of and that can be confirmed with Mr. Doug Du rant who was one of the members of the inquiry board.
I was at the Vaal one day and one of the stipes said I was not allowed as i am warned of so I mentioned it to Mr. Du Rant who then took me to the NHA room with all the stipes present and told them I was not warned off and can come and go as I like and in fact can own horses in future should I apply for it and it gets granted.
i was found guilty as the person in charge, same as a trainer is responsible when found guilty on a dope charge even if he did not administered it himself.
i want o make it very clear i have never in my life abused a horse.
Here are the facts (as said before can be backed up by documents)
I bought a bunch of horses, racing stock mares foals etc from Mooiwater stud, with that i also took over the manager and he came with the horses. I paid him a fair salary, and gave him a brand new bakkie as well, his duties was to manage the farm, I also appointed staff who was not experienced but willing to learn and he undertook as part of his duties to train them.
In the beginning everything went well, then my workers started to complain that he swears at them and gets fiscal, he also hit a horse with a fist but that I only learned later.
At the same time i was experiencing mayor problems in my business I was a developer and also run my own bond centre with 5 ladies doing the bond applications for my developments, during 2008 we started experiencing problems as ABSA one morning in July 2008, out of the blue, said they only do 90% bonds from then on, so I started to help buyers with deposits in order to keep sales going, up to this day I have R7 000 000 outstanding on deposits which i cannot collect. During the next few months the situation got worse as the banks made their criteria a lot stricter and were virtually not granting any bonds
I had developments who were sold out and buyers with approved bonds. Units were sold off plan earlier and when the developments were finished and we started to register the bonds the banks turned around and said they have to re- asses the bonds and bonds that were approved was all of a sudden declined.
That started putting a strain on my business and we even had the bizarre situation that transactions on prep were being declined, (that means that transaction that were going to register the next day was put on hold by a company with the name of Integer with the excuse that they have to revaluate the property) in the history of bond registration something like that has never happened before.
They then came back with ludicrous valuations, example units that was valued at R865 000 3 months before was valued at R389 000, 45% of previous value and it was clear that they do not want to carry on with the bonds so they use that as I excuse to cancel the bonds.
I was running around trying my best to save my business and make enough money to pay peoples salaries (which at that time was 500K per month) because I always paid salaries before anything else, one of the reasons my wife divorced me said I was always paying other people first.,
End March 2009 I reached the end, that week I had 16 applications for bonds turned down which in normal times would have been approved with no problems whatsoever, and I had to close doors.
in the meantime things on the farm did not go well as I started running out off money feeding the horses, at the time I was buying my feed from Cash Truter and he was so kind as to give me a recipe to mix my own food to save money and transport from Kroonstad to Rustenburg where the farm was.
At the same time I had the stables at the Vaal where I had 30 horses costing me another R120 000 per month. I also had the farm in Mooi River that was also running at R120 000 per month.
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The manager at the farm in Rustenburg had an affair with the neighbor’s wife he found out and when the manager hit the horse with the fist he phoned the SPCA which contacted the Horse care unit.
They came and had a look at the horses and made some recommendation and train some of the staff, because I had fired the manager for hitting the horse with the fist, which we implemented. Just want to mention he got kicked by another horse into the hospital, judgment served
Unfortunately at the same time the sale off the farm fell through, because of abovementioned factors and the owner repossed the farm without a court order and chased my workers off the farm with a gun and left the horses without care and food for a week he refused to allow anybody on the farm to feed the horses.
I had to get a court order and the sheriff went with us to remove the horses.
A friend about 5 km away offered temporarily use of his farm which was not equipped for keeping horses but I was in the processes of renting a farm nearby with paddocks and stables but the transaction was a few days away from being finalized.
We had to take the horses by foot about 5 km but because of their condition it was a long journey in the hot sun and it was terrible as they were weak.
The same night my trucks came with some horses from the racing stables we were retiring and as they were off loaded in the dark some of them took off and ran into the barb wires, there were also some lose barb wire that was lying around in the camp which we did not know about that caused further injuries.
During the night one of the weak foals was chased down by jackal and eaten.
The next day the horse care unit came for an inspection and confiscated the horses
All in all at that time anything that could go wrong did.
I wanted to put the horses on auction and spoke to Holmes Bloodstock but they said we have to improve the condition first which we tried.
Do people really think that horses that I paid hundred thousands of rands for I would purposely get them injured and abuse them?
I tried my best to get the situation under control but things never seem to go according to plan and for that I am sorry.
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Now about Propertyskilzz, I am not going to try and explain my concept here in detail but what I want to say it was legal and things were going well units were being build and sold and everything was fine.
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Our units was investor units, buy to rent which at the time was a big concept overall 60% of bonds approved was for buy 2 rent Absa was even advertising it has pamphlet from Absa to prove, we bought complete developments from developers and then sold them to investors and part of the deal was that we would pay the difference between the bonds and the rent received for 12 months, no expenses for buyer in first year, the amount for that was factored into the selling price, example if the difference between the bond and the rent was R2000 p.m. We would then pay the R24 000 difference, in the second year we would use the growth in the value of the property to finance the shortfall. We also guaranteed inventors should the unit be empty we would still pay the bond so not once did I phone an investor saying “Hi your unit is empty you must pay the rent” Bank accounts to prove this is available, at the end of December I was making payments to the amount of R1 000 000 per month on bonds.
At the same time I was defrauded by an transferring attorney of one the complexes we bought by R1, 6 m, documents available to prove, according to SAP “on going investigation”
Unfortunately the interest rates started to go up but not once did I phone one of the investors and told them when they bought the unit we made provision for R24 000 per year for their shortfall but the interest rate has gone up and they need to paid in the shortfall on the new bond installment I paid it myself.
I was also carrying deposits the bank required in order to get sales going. When I closed doors I was busy with developments with a total nett profit of R16 000 000, but without bonds they were worth nothing and the banks was killing us with bond declines one after the other, It was one the saddest days of my life, I built up this from an idea on a piece of paper in a restaurant to a multimillion business in a short time and the reason it went down was not because of anything I did but because of what was happening in other parts of the world and the effect it had on the economy.
Now let talk about jockey sponsorships that Harry and everybody is going about.
When I ran into money trouble I had to take the decision to either pay the jockeys or buy feed for the horses and pay salaries, as the jockeys were earning money I had to choose the latter two options.
They were on a retainer of R10 –R15000 per month plus money for every win but a lot of times some of them never wore their caps through their winning interviews saying they forget the caps or not allowed or someone remove the caps, then I had to send new caps, I must say the mileage I got out of it was never worth the money tough.
I want to state that Weichong Marwing is a absolute gentleman, he always treated me with utmost respect and he phoned me from overseas to hear how things are and said one day when I am ready and back on my feet we can talk about paying him and I do want to thank him for that.
One of the jockeys whom I owe about R20 000 for the last two months wanted to lay a charge of fraud after 4 years , must be desperate for money, and ironically he was the one who did not were his cap often.
To Muzi I just want to say I am sorry I still owe you but you actually make me proud when I saw how well you are doing now, to think I gave you a sponsorship when no else wanted to.
Andrew Fortune was a pleasure to work with; I owe him nothing, paid in full. He would actually out of his own gave me a few winners, would phone and say he is riding that the next day have a few rand on, we missed a couple of times but we also made good money so that in fact his sponsorship did not cost me as I made it up through winning bets, never that it was my idea to make money through sponsoring jockeys and getting tips, never phoned them once for info.
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Antony Delpech quit type not sure how much I owe him and then Robbie Hill also a gentleman up to this day never phoned me.
I want to say sorry to all of you and I promise if I can make it back on my feet one day I would like to settle my accounts with you.
Then there was the matter of tellytrack with whom I also spent quite a bit of advertising what a nightmare, ads are not shown or shown at other times than booked or not showed at all although I paid for the broadcast, with them everything have to be paid up front but delivery is not a priority.
CONCLUSION
I am actually glad that this came out so that I can have a chance to put my side of the story, it is a relief.
Maybe I went to big, had about 200 horses at one stage , maybe I let my passion get the better of me and for that I am sorry, looking back I realized I made mistakes and for that I am sorry to the people who got hurt I am thankful for the people who chose not to kick me when I was down, thank you to the merchant whom owe about R30 000 up to this day for feed and never sued me or phone me thank you, if I make it back on my feet I will surely turn by you.
Through this whole thing I and my now ex wife lost 27 properties ourselves. On my personal balance sheet my net worth was R20 m, not in cash but in assets, and I am not saying this to brag but to show how much I have lost in this whole thing, do people really think that’s what I wanted?
But what I am proud of is what I have achieved; I can drive by complexes and show my kids that is what your father has built.
For the last 4 years I have tried to make a comeback and that is why I want to start this syndicate as I know I have the knowledge and drive to make it successful and I do something I have a passion for. The one thing I am going to do is not to try and do everything on my own, as I did before, but to get other experts involved
And to those people out here who are judging and convicting me if your live is squeaky clean you may cast the first stone.
YOU BE THE JUDGE
