OFF THE RECORD #21

Expect the Unexpected - Part 2
Racing personalities share stories of surprise and humour

Read Part 1, here.

Above:  Mark van Deventer

We kick off Part 2 with a contribution from Cape-based racing scribe Mark van Deventer, who will soon be publishing his first book. Mark recalled a time when he and a good sporting mate, who is a pro-punter, would discuss the card on race day mornings. They combined their knowledge and Mark said: “He respected my form analysis. Combined with his knack for figures, refined betting instincts and razor sharp suss of the odds/probabilities, this made for a neat combination."

“There was no formal financial agreement in place – it was simply a spirited exchange of pre-race opinions which would either turn out to be inspired or worthless. Successes were celebrated and even after dismal days, we’d often end up partying together at the local Sports Club."

“One Saturday morning we went through the card together in typically good humoured, jaunty style. My mate was keen to get involved as there was a big P6 carry-forward and an expected pool of R4-million. I mentioned a few horses that I considered potential winners, set off for the track and got on with my job there. As usual I had no idea what my friend was betting on – that was his personal and professional domain. Other than passing on my opinion there was no strategic discussion about constructing tickets nor amounts wagered."

“Obviously, there are many days when my choices miss by a mile despite all the diligent research, but this was one of those rare occasions when the selections, some at big prices, followed the script perfectly and ran to their projected speed figures."

“There was also a huge ‘bomb’ result in the third Leg of the P6 which knocked out many perms. An impossible- to- find, Erica Beck-trained sprinter ridden by Glen Hatt shook loose on the lead and stole a fortuitous victory as a massive, long shot."

“After the final ‘good thing’ I labelled arrived in the penultimate race (this was a long time ago, but I think it was Wethreekings, trained by Vaughan Marshall) I received an unexpected call from my excited buddy. ‘Thanks for your help, bru,’ he said. ‘I took a Pick 6 built around your tips and we have the Field running in the final Leg. The dividends range from 60k upwards and there are a couple of spooks paying over a million. You’ve got 10% of whatever happens – let’s pull for a weird result!’"

“This was very generous. As mentioned, we had no formal partnership agreement. What’s more, I’d had nothing to do with the precise construction of the play which is such an important element of crafting horizontal exotics and taking multi tickets to cover nuanced opinions. Being right when going short and lucky when playing wide is optimal. As it turned out my mate had not overcomplicated things and had simply gone 5 x 2 x F x 2 x 2 x F, outlaying R2800 on a single, full ticket."

“I sat calmly in the grandstand above the finish line. Horseplayers acknowledge that beyond doing the work, coming up with sharp picks and betting them as intelligently as possible, we are powerless as the outcome is completely beyond our control. The result lies in the ‘lap of the Gods.’ On that balmy mid-summer afternoon, the ‘Racing Deity’ smiled kindly upon our endeavours. In a desperate finish it looked like the second favourite would prevail for a return of around 80K, until one of those rank outsiders, Arts Academy (trained by Piet Steyn) mugged it on the line. The official dividend was one million and eighteen thousand Rand!"

“My mate was true to his word, gifting me a 100K ‘gelukkie’ at a time when it made a big difference in my life. He also bought a house up the West Coast for himself and a car for a family member. Perhaps more importantly, it provided the greatest currency boost of all – confidence. That attribute has helped my friend endure the peaks and ‘valiums’ of gambling/trading for a living. As a thank you memento, I gave him a framed photo of all six winners. He hung it up in his gambling den at home and glancing at it would be a source of inspiration even many years later. Some of those results were indeed weird. The two ‘spooks’ that caused such a spectacular dividend never won again. And the generosity shown to me was unexpected and deeply valued."

Above: Nico Kritsiotis

Race caller Nico Kritsiotis told of an incident that happened in the commentary box at Turffontein just a few weeks ago. While he was calling an 1800m race - about 400m into the race - the ledge that supports the binoculars and stand completely ripped off its hinges, taking the amplifier with it to the ground!"

Said Nico: “I was left holding the stand and the binoculars with Naqeeb Munshi and Barry Redford trying to put everything back together whilst I called the rest of the race. What none of us realised was that the amplifier became unplugged in the process and there was no commentary for the race going out, anyway. This was completely unexpected and definitely a first!”

Above:  Wavin' Flag

Grant Knowles has a racing story which goes a long way to show that, as a big or small racehorse owner, a bit of luck and some patience can take you a long way. All you really have to do is ‘show up’ for every opportunity.

Grant said: “In 2009 I was looking for a nice horse for the Groom’s Trust. Adrian Todd, Brett Crawford and I bought a weanling from John Slade for R200,000. He was well-bred, by Silvano out of the stakes winner Garland. We took him to a sale, but he was very narrow, so narrow he could run through a Palisade fence without touching it. There was no bid for him."

“We took him to a second sale, where we got a bid from a fellow in KZN, but he pulled out a week after the sale and we were stuck with the horse. I was a bit despondent, but we managed to get a few other partners in to cover costs and race the horse ourselves. In the end there were six of us. He was named Wavin’ Flag and the early news was not too exciting. Brett put him into training, he was still narrow and he proved to be on the slow side. He started his career finishing 15^th of 16 in a Maiden Plate over 1600m at Kenilworth. Needless to say, there were a few disappointed investors. I wanted to switch my phone off."

“Bret said to give him a few more chances. While Wavin’ Flag was slow, he seemed to have plenty of stamina. He actually stayed on in his second start after labouring at the back for most of the race and finished fourth. After that, he was narrowly beaten in a 2000m race at Kenilworth and, by now, I was confident that our partners would recover their outlay."

“We found a 2400m for him at Kenilworth in June 2013, as a late three-year-old, and Karis Teetan got him home to win by three quarters of a length. Our guy proved that he had an engine inside that narrow chest and Brett had what sounded like an impossible hope. He said: “You know what guys, this horse stays forever. I think we can win the Gold Cup with him!”

“However unlikely Brett’s prediction seemed, over the next few months Wavin’ Flag won again over 2400m, placed second at Grade 2 level over 2800m and then third over 3200m in the Grade 3 Chairmans Cup. When the 2014 KZN season rolled along, Brett put him on a float to Durban where he stepped out over 1900m and got within three lengths of his star stablemate Futura in a 1900m race, followed by a fourth in the Grade 3 Lonsdale Stirrup Cup and a close defeat in the Grade 2 Gold Vase on Durban July Day. There was a touch of class in the ‘narrow one’ too."

“On 26 July, 2014, Wavin’Flag lined up for the Gold Cup, the last time it was run as Grade 1 race. He was fourth in the betting at 7-1 behind Master Sabina, Wild One and Alexander. He enjoyed a trouble-free run, stayed on from off the pace and won under a great ride from Glen Hatt. Most of us were there, a memorable occasion that was just a pipe dream when he’d finished almost last on his debut just a year earlier. That was my first and only Grade 1 win so far, almost by default. Wavin’ Flag went on to finish fourth to Louis The King in the Summer Cup. He earned R1,2-million in stakes.”

Above: Francois Naude (left) with Corne Spies

Next, a story from near 30 years ago, courtesy of trainer Corne Spies and former jockey Francois Naude. On 20 May, 1994, Francois was riding at a Friday meeting at Arlington in the old Port Elizabeth. He was carded to ride the filly Autumn Song for Corne’s father, Tobie, in the SA Fillies Classic at Scottsville in Pietermaritzburg the following afternoon, Saturday, 21 May, 1994.

Francois notified Tobie Spies that he would be flying straight in to Pietermaritzburg that Saturday morning and asked Corne to pick him up at the airport near the racetrack, at 11am.

Corne recalled: “When I got the airport it was deserted, there were no aeroplanes on the runway, not even a security guard at the gate. I waited half an hour, but there was still no aircraft in sight. Those were the days when mobile phones had just been launched into the market. I had one of those old, heavy, ‘brick’ phones. I made a few calls, eventually found a number for Air Traffic Control at the Durban Airport. The officials in charge were perplexed. They said there were no flights coming in from Port Elizabeth to Pietermaritzburg that day. They even investigated whether there were any late flights chartered. But there were no records, whatsoever, of anything."

“At this point I was getting worried that something bad may have happened. Francois was unreachable, and nobody had any knowledge of his flight. But then, what felt like a long time after he was supposed to arrive in Pietermaritzburg, my phone rang. It was Francois’ voice, and on the old mobile technology he sounded far away. Well, he was. ‘Corne,’ said Francois. ‘There was a mess-up. I landed in Pietersburg (Polokwane)!’ “

Francois explained what had happened: “When I went to the ticket counter in Port Elizabeth the lady must’ve heard me saying ‘Pietersburg’ instead of ‘Pietermaritzburg’. The flight codes, I found out later, were almost similar, like PB vs PBZ, so I didn’t notice that stepping on. Our plane was a six-seater and I got to speak to the captain and his co-pilot. They saw my saddle and, not knowing anything about race days and venues, wished me well on my day’s rides."

“The flight felt on the long side, but it was a small plane so I only felt puzzled when we came in for the landing and I saw no big buildings or a racetrack nearby. ‘What’s going on,’ I asked the captain. ‘Is Scottsville far from here?’ Of course we were closer to the Limpopo river than to Scottsville Racecourse. It was an embarrassing situation for all of us. They offered to fly me back to Durban, but at that point it was too late. I wouldn’t have got to the track in time."

“I flew back on the same plane, was dropped off in Johannesburg. Deon Sampson replaced me on Autumn Song and as it happened, she finished last. Journalist Chad Cooke wrote the story for a mainstream newspaper. Everyone got to know about it and for the next several months I was known as ‘Pietersburg Naude’ even by the race callers!”

Above: Tara Laing

Tara Laing said she had a whole host of racing stories to tell. The popular Gqeberha-based trainer singled out two incidents from her time as assistant to James Goodman at Randjesfontein in the 1990s. She recounted: “James played a lot of golf, and spent a lot of time in the IGN studios as a presenter. So he often left me, his very young assistant, to hold the fort."

James had two vehicles in those days. He drove a gold Mercedes Benz and a smaller one of maroon or purple colour. Tara said: “I can’t remember what make it was, but I used it to buzz around the stables and go up and down to the track."

“One day James decided to drive his Merc to the track. He didn’t go up the normal tarred road, instead took the route the horses walked, at the back of the stable complex. We’d had a lot of rain, so the alternative road was muddy, slippery and a downright bog. I don’t know what possessed him to drive that way, that day but, to cut a long story short, he lost control of his car and careered through the railings, almost completely writing off the prized Merc!"

“So, I decided, I would have a bit of a laugh. I got my hands on some second-hand tyres, bought rope, tied all the tyres together and wrapped it around James’ purple/maroon car (as the Merc had to go in for repairs), to make it look like a bumper car! Needless to say, the next morning I got the swearing of my life!"

“There was also a mass strike of workers in that period of time. It went on for weeks. James hired a private security company, armed with pump-action shotguns, to sit outside our barn doors. We had a lot of volunteers helping us muck out, saddle, ride work etc, including my father."

“Our runner Cowabunga, my personal favourite in the stable, was the horse of the moment. He was very good, but rather a feisty fellow. Jockey Donovan Habib and I got lumbered with him. I would tack him up and trot him up to track. Don would work him, then I would bring him home and hose him down."

“One morning as I was unsaddling Cowabunga, one of the security guards decided to give his shotgun a bit of a ‘pump’ as a test and a loud and unexpected shot rang out. The horse took off at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. I had to hang on for dear life. I was thinking, ‘if I let this horse go, James would kill me!’ So, I clung on. I was actually skiing beside Cowabunga on the sand walkway, that’s how fast he was going."

“Eventually, coming to the back of Diane Stenger’s yard, a distance away, he slowed down. My gloves had holes in them, my fingers were bleeding and the soles were hanging off the bottom of my riding boots! I got him back to the stable, swore at the security guard (he was whiter than a sheet), and proceeded to wipe Cowabunga down. I sighed a huge sigh of relief when I had him safely back in his stable.”