OTA - while I agree with you in many respects, when i rejoined local racing after a protracted absence, i found many things had changed. But one of the things that I have found most difficult from my media perspective and most puzzling from my membership perspective, was the obstructive & beligerent attitude to any questions asked about how or why things were done the way they were.
Local racing has some of the toughest, fun-est (?), most passionate & most resourceful people I have ever had the privilege of spending time with. And it used to be a wonderful (if somewhat crazy & colourful) COMMUNITY. It is my humble opinion that the community has been the biggest victim of the damage that has been inflicted. We have seen the loss or subversion of almost all the old communication structures - the joint advisory boards, the NHA regional intermediaries (sorry, have forgotten the formal terminology), the press, etc. It has broken down & divided & broken up what was once a strong & noisy group & weakened it to the point where no-one really knew or understood what was going on with any accuracy & anyone who asked was told to bugger off, making it easy for things to be done from a management point of view & hard to understand from a stakeholder point of view.
I am not letting anyone off the hook - least of all myself - but given how i have had to struggle for information, it is easy to see that a lot of other people may also have been in the dark. And it's hard to defend & protect something when you can't even figure out what the problems are (or if they even exist).
We have seen that the authorities refuse to pay any attention to individuals & insist that 'official channels' be used & those official channels are either so unpleasant or inept (or both) that it has acted as a very effective strategy for ensuring that few bother.
So in my humble opinion, the division & fragmentation of the community has been the real poison.
I think only when people learn to set aside their differences & lean together again towards a common goal will we be able to achieve anything meaningful.
Over the Air wrote: Oscar and Louis you two are typical of the owners in South Africa. Racing is a passion, its almost a hobby of sorts albeit an extremely expensive one. You guys dont need the aggrevation of politics whilst enjoying your sport. This however has enabled the thieves, primarily Jooste and his sidekicks to take over racing. Whilst there will invariably be the puffing up of indignent chests at this statement and as Oscar tells it, he never " supported " these thieves, the reality is in your silence you were complicit and allowed the capture of racing to take place.
So before the howls start, let me remind you that under Jooste who at one stage was a board member of the RA, Phumelela and a trustee of the Racing Trust, Jooste applied his vertical integration business model to racing and took control of the Ra, Phumelela and the NHA. The proof of my statement lies in the number of Steinhoff employees who were squirrelled into positions of power into these organisations. Len Konar, Larry Wainstein, Rian du Plessis, Steve Booysens, Lionel Lindsay, Roodt from Roodt Inc who was his lawyer and not a registered colour holder and yet a Racing Trust trustee. When affiliations are added and you include factions such as the Kantor Investec crowd that includes individuals like Mark Currie it is blatantly obvious that racing is captured. It is not debatable.
My point is that these guys are and were always accountable but were allowed to carry on unhindered. During this period the Stakes agreement, the lifeblood of local racing stakes went from a formal results based equation to a verbal agreement between the RA and Phumelela with members not being allowed sight of the new format. Confidentiality agreements were.put in place, conveniently, to fob off any dissenters. Amazingly, despite evidence to the contrary, this is now denied by the guilty parties. Funding of racing activities has also been subsidised by the proceeds from the RA ownership of Phumelela shares. Western Cape racing, that pathetic excuse for a business, was coveted and taken over by Jooste and his Stellenbosch mafia, and this again was paid for by Racing Trust funding. The joke of the Western Cape with out of season 6 horse fields as the norm received massive increases in stakes at the expense of their Gauteng counterparts who received little to none once the takeover happened. All with the support of the people put there to protect owners interests. Smell something? Its the rot that you guya have allowed by not having the backbone to challenge these changes.
Finally, the greatest insult to anyones intelligence was the sell off of Trust shares in Phumelea to pay for the acquisition of Supabets and at a price that all the fools that "invested" were unable to offload for a period and will be taking a bath. If it wasnt so pathetic it would be funny. The trust holding of Phumelela shares has diminished from 38% to 25% and we all sit on our hands and allow the raping of racing to continue. You Ra members are.so stupid you paid for the act.
There are many many more examples of how Jooste has manipulated racing for his own benefit. I wont even go into CTS. Who is to blame? You owners who said and did nothing. Its not enough to say I didnt support anyone the question is why were you silent?
Apologies I posted from my mobile so spelling and grammar will be dicey but Im pretty sure my message is clear. Suck it up you created it.
