CHARITY TURF CHALLENGE 2009

The first leg of the Charity Turf Challenge, the Grade 2 Drill Hall Stakes, was run on Friday night May 8 and those entrants that included Earl Of Surrey (Century Stand) and River Jetez (Jet Master) in their 10-horse selection will be ecstatic as their horses finished first and third respectively, garnering all-important points towards winning the R100 000 prize. Earl Of Surrey earned 10 points and River Jetez, who impressed in her first start since finishing close up in this year’s J&B Met, earned a valuable 5 points ahead of her next possible start, the Betting World 1900 (Gr. 2).



According to the new points system, all qualifiers that win during the KZN Champion’s Season are eligible to earn points and Gaultier (Jallad) also opened his account by winning the In Full Flight Handicap.



The KRA Fillies Guineas and KRA Guineas, postponed from Sunday’s rained-off meeting at Greyville, took lace last night under perfect conditions. Big City Life (Casey Tibbs) powered away to earn his followers ten points in the colts and geldings version with two non-qualifiers filling the second and third places. In the fillies race all eyes were on the Cape’s two leading sophomore fillies, Mother Russia (Windrush) and Sparkling Gem (Joshua Dancer), but On Her Toes (Western Winter) showed scant regard for those reputations as she won at fairly big odds and earned 10 points. Hassan Adams’ improving daughter of Captain Al, Dance with Al, ran on for second and the late Laurie and Jean Jaffee’s homebred, Consensual (Camden Park), showed a welcome return to form to finish in third place.



The process of capturing all entries is nearing completion and it is hoped that the audit process would have been concluded by early next week after which the first all-important leader board will be published. Herewith the list of point scorers’ to date:

As seems to be rule for comptitons designed by racing administrators who know nothing about betting, this competition does not take ODDS into account.

Instead it used arbitrarily allocated points (who decided on those; this they test it against results from the past?).

It goes against all that racing stands for.

Same guys as idols doing the results auditing

At least they put their money on the table.It is great to be full of ideas and criticism but as the saying goes 'put up or shut up'. Alot of interest has been shown by the response and everyone seems excited about the competition, so well done to the organisers.

Presenter,what were the 10 horses that you strategically chose for the competition?

I played more than one permutation . My best at moment is Vacherin,Mother Russia,ON HER TOES,BIG CITY LIFE, RIVER JETEZ, lord London, Dancers D ,Pocket Pocket P ,EqualImage and Kapil. I think the interest shown and the response alone makes the competion a winner for the Racing Industry. How did you play ?

Hi Presenter,apologies for the late response...was watching the IPL.Also played more than one permutation and specially selected one entry to try and win the July Day competition.In most of my entries River Jetez is the anchor.My best at present is this entry:Warm White Night /Rebel King (to secure the first bonus race)River Jetez,Dancers Daughter,Pocket Power,Smart Banker,Big City Life and Our Giant (to secure the second and third bonus races) followed by Dijla and Mr Crazy Boy.

Just for fun i took an entry that included 9 of the Charles Laird trained horses with Vacherin.The Laird horses are Warm White Night,Rebel King,Smart Banker,Oracy,Senor Versace,Likeithot,Our Giant,Merlene de Lago and Generous Anna.

As stated previously,the concept is great,but the R50 entry fee makes this competition exclusive.I understand racingSA's reason for doing it the way that they have,but the fact that GC and Phumelela have as yet not been prepared to come on board as a sponsor of sorts to make this competition available to all participants of the betting pool that makes up SA racing again just goes to show that racing has become about the bottom line and nothing more.