More questions than answers in the case against Abashiri’s ex-owner

It surely must have crossed any number of minds why Adriaan van Vuuren, once hailed as one of the newest, large players in South African horse racing, would suddenly turn his back on the turf and summarily dispose of a string of high-priced horseflesh.

Especially as Van Vuuren was the owner of three year-old equine superstar Abashiri, the gelding that won the Triple Crown – the SA Derby, Gauteng Guineas and SA Classic – before quitting horse racing last year.

Only Horse Chestnut, in 1999, and Louis the King, in 2014, managed to secure the classic series as Abashiri, who had banked over R5 million in prize money, including a R2 million bonus for winning all three legs of the Triple Crown.

But all of that is racing history now as Telkom subsidiary Trudon this week obtained a court order freezing the bank accounts and assets of its former IT manager, who lived like a millionaire after allegedly defrauding the company of more than R500 million.

The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria granted an order freezing the bank accounts of Van Vuuren, his wife, Rika, various business entities and family trusts.

The thoughts that come immediately to mind are how Telkom allowed a haemorrhage of capital of this magnitude to occur in the first place.

The checks and balances must have been so loosely reined that it was almost as if the state-owned enterprise had applied to the racing authorities for corporate colours.

There are also some searching questions to be asked inside the racing community on how a relative unknown in the industry managed to pour the amount of cash it is alleged he did and embark on a ride which shot him straight into the headlines, without checking the weights in the saddle bags he brought with him.

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