De Kocks fume over ‘unprofessional’ stipes action

Jack Milner

Imagine you are thetrainer of a horse which has just won a R1-million Grade 2 race with another of your runners finishing third.

You celebrate with the winning owners go through all the interviews and presentations, only to find later that your third-placed finisher had been demoted to fourth place at an inquiry which you knew nothing about.

That is exactly what happened to Mike and Mathew de Kock after the running of the TAB Gauteng Guineas at Turffontein on Saturday.

Splittheeights won the race with One Eye On Vegas finishing third but shortly after they left the parade ring following all the interviews, they discovered that Serino Moodley, jockey of Trust who finished fourth, had lodged a successful objection against One Eye On Vegas – and they were left clueless.

There was an announcement of a race review followed by news of the objection but those either involved in the presentations or witnessing it heard none of the announcement as the Turffontein sound system is not particularly coherent in the parade ring area which meant the only person representing the stable at the inquiry was jockey Sean Veale.

No effort was made to contact either of the De Kocks, but the inquiry just went ahead without them.

“It was thoroughly unprofessional to leave us out of the inquiry,” said Mike. “We knew nothing about it. We all know the sound system at Turffontein is not great, but we were not identified and we were easily reachable.

“Both Mathew and myself had our cell phones so all it would have taken is a quick call to either of us.

“And I have to add there is no ways I agree with the decision!”

For the record, one other journalist and myself were in the parade ring doing interviews and watching the presentation, and neither of us heard the announcement of either the stewards inquiry or the objection.

However, Chief StipendiarySteward Lyle Anderson explained that when they called for the inquiry, they requested the hooter to be blown on course. “But we were told the hooter wasn’t working so we asked the course commentator to make the announcement.

“By that stage time was of the essence and as we had the jockey, we went ahead with the inquiry into the objection.”

In defence of the stipes, stipendiary steward Ryan Hutcheson called De Kock to apologise for their error. “It’s rare we get an apology from the stipes so I’m happy to accept it,” said De Kock.