Open letter from Mark Sham - RE: NHRA

Louis, I haven’t had any response or reply from NHA to any of my queries. I completed my survey and requested a meeting with Mr Moodley and Mr Hyde only to be told basically that it’s not their problem. I have added this to the AGM agenda for discussion.

Please understand Im not asking them to be debt collectors only to stick to their rules as published and not look for any excuse to get out of it. We need to find a drastic way to reverse the process that both you and Oscar are referring to. You have the right idea about RA and trainers association but when our governing body can’t uphold its rules and constitution how do you think any other body will be able to when NHA just pushes the problems to the side.

The NHA is in their own words “under resourced” but why? Because the whole industry is filling apart and they are blind to it.

Mark
I fully understand the situation and I am in your corner.

As per my previous post, but in other words, the following are my opinions -

One might ask what the RA has done about this ? Is Mr X a RA member ? If yes, then surely RA must try and assist, by contacting the Owner etc.

If no, then surely because they have a code of conduct for their members, they will support you anyway, as Mr X is an Owner who is being allowed to continue Racing normally, whilst not paying service providers, whilst all RA members, in turn, have to abide by the rules of RA and have to pay their Service Providers.

But, why blame the RA, when KZN does not have an Owners Association and when the majority of SA Owners are not RA members ? The RA is not a National body.

What about the Operators ? When a Trainer gets behind, his noms are blocked. The very same Mr.X probably owes Trainers plenty. Surely Operators understand that by not blocking this specific Owner, they will end up blocking a hapless Trainer, whose other good paying Owners will also now suffer, because of Mr.X. But, the Operators wont do it, because like NHRA, they will only do something if National Bodies put pressure on them.

And then there is the Trainers Association, who should act on behalf of the Trainer, when a Trainer is owed money. (In Mr X's case the plainant is New Turf and not a Trainer, though). But, right now, none of the Regions other than KZN have a properly registered Trainers Association. The National Trainers Association is about to get started but 4 of the 5 Regions do not have a properly registered Regional Trainers Association. Think about it....When KZN put pressure on NHRA, it's a Region that is putting pressure and NHRA will, quite rightly, reply that the other Regions are not complaining.

To me, a sizable portion of the many problems facing the Industry stems from the relevant bodies not being National and not having proper and honourable structures in place and not being National bodies. And a National Service Providers body should also be formed...


And these proper and honourable structures must include codes of conduct and must apply to all - Owners, Trainers, Jockeys, Grooms, Service Providers, including Racing's own Directors and Management.

The word "honourable" stands out...as does the fact that when all National bodies in Racing agree on an issue like this, NHRA will have to act.