Met stakes decimated by Phumelela and RA

stake takes 40% Haircut.

when is Larry Wainstein resigning or getting his ass fired for failing his mandate.

this is just another disaster under his mandate

That hits home hard!

No one else to blame but owners and trainers who let this go on far too long when they saw the ship was sinking.Punters have absolutely jack shit say.
To me most trainers (some though definitely had strong opinions) where too scared to make a stand and now they going to be the first to claim unemployment.

Ohhhhh dear ...

www.racingpost.com/news/international/pr...urnover-falls/404306

INTERNATIONAL SOUTH AFRICA
By Michael Clower
12:49PM, OCT 15 2019

Prize-money is set to be cut in the majority of South Africa's racing centres by an average of 13 per cent from next month with Cape Town’s showpiece race, the Sun Met, the biggest sufferer. It has had its value slashed by 40 per cent from R5 million (£267,000) to R3m (£160,256).

More than half the country’s prize-money comes from Tote turnover and public company Phumelela, which is responsible for all except the two Durban courses, blames declining turnover as well as a negative return from its ownership of the country’s biggest bookmaker Betting World.

In addition, prize-money will not benefit from Phumelela dividends this year because declining revenue has hit the company’s profitability hard, while the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) has added insult to injury by ruling that Phumelela is no longer entitled to its half-share of the six per cent tax on winning bets.

Phumelela stated in a press release on Monday that it is "currently negotiating with the GPG and the Gauteng Gambling Board in an attempt to have its share of the levy reinstated". It is no certainty to succeed.


The news comes soon after Phumelela announced Flamingo Park racecourse is set to close in December, the third South African track to shut its door in the last six years, leaving just seven courses in the country by the end of 2019.

The prize-money hit will affect only some of the Group 1s, but most of the Group 2 and 3 races have been cut by between 12.5 per cent and 20 per cent, while lower grade contests have been cut almost across the board. Maidens in Cape Town, for example, have been reduced from R80,000 (£4,273) to R70,000 (£3,740).

However, there are no prize-money cuts – and there are none planned – at Greyville and Scottsville as they are administered by Gold Circle.

The interest in racing and betting is greater in the Durban area than in the rest of the country and both courses have benefitted substantially from a recent R14.5m (£774,572) three-year sponsorship deal with bookmaking firm Hollywoodbets.

I have to say I can fully accept that the SA economic situation is not good for horse racing and it can only get worse.. cutting stakes now is the only way forwards.. owners and trainers just need to take a view as to whether or not it’s worth continuing for them individually..breeders too will feel this impact.. stakes might or might not go up again just like the Rand/$ exchange rate.. the money has to come from somewhere and if there is not enough money then changes have to be made..this is not an SOE where bailouts apply

a decade ago the cost of living in rsa was half that of the uk. now it is the same
bsa used to say that racing horses in rsa needed two wins a year to cover costs now we need at least four
so all racing has done is keep in line with the overall cost of living in this country . the choice is do we keep on living in a third world country whilst paying first world prices.

It is actually an increase in stakes if everything had been left alone a couple of years ago.

The stake for the Met was R2.5 million before ego's got involved and it was bumped to R5 million for no valuable economic reason other than ego. Really not difficult to sketch the picture with a bit of poetic license.

There is an auction company and prominent ex-owner trying to push their sale as the premier sale in SA and Cape Town as the premier venue with the most prestigious race in SA. The sales race has the highest prize money in SA in history...... why not bump the Met to R5 million? I would love to see the minutes from the meeting in which this amount was decided on, the people involved and the rationale.

It sickens me that most of the people involved in that decision still derive a living from the industry in key positions. The decision was devoid of logic and business sense and the reason for the dramatic drop in value has nothing to do with the economy but rather reflects the magnitude of the error of ever making the stake R5 million based on ego rather than proper business reasoning.

As we continue week in and week out, CPT fields battle to get past 7-8 runners a race and have more horses in satellite yards and raiding than they do have racing in their back yards. Isn't it funny how CPT racing is still a problem after all these years and it has just moved from being a GC problem to a Phumelela problem? When do proper decisions get made for the good of racing?

It would be interesting to see a comparison between how much the bookmakers take in betting from CPT owners or if CPT owners actually support the tote that pays the stakes?

Some times the answers are all in front of us but we will not see wood for trees...