Bigger stakes and more incentives lined up for new Cape Racing season

If proof was needed that Cape Racing’s efforts to boost racing in its region are working, it came in the form of data for the just-concluded season released by the operator this week.

For good measure, interesting new initiatives were also unveiled.

Notably, the average size of Western Cape race fields – which were declining at an alarming rate in 2020 – picked up by 17% in 2022/23. The average of 8.8 rose to 10.4, bucking the negative trend on the Highveld and in KwaZulu-Natal.

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The revolutionary idea of paying owners and trainers to run their horses – instead of charging them a fee, as was always the norm – has clearly worked a treat. So have substantially increased stakes and other incentives.

The system, under the Racecape brand, paid out a hefty R13.2-million to owners, trainers and other stakeholders.

About 100 more “individual” horses than in 2021/22 raced at Kenilworth and Durbanville.

More of the same, please. And Cape Racing has already delivered.

In addition to further sizeable prizemoney hikes – to R120,000 for a maiden plate, R185,000 for a Class A stakes race etc – the operator has “implemented considered, and what we believe to be well-researched,
programme changes from juveniles right through to our older horses”.

Appearance fees

A striking change is the division of the local training cohort into three categories, with “smaller” trainers (and their owners) getting larger appearance fees. The categories are based on the championship table of the previous season.

Category A is made up of Justin Snaith, Candice Bass-Robinson and Brett Crawford; category B is Vaughan Marshall, Glen Kotzen and Dean Kannemeyer; while category C is the rest and all visiting trainers.

In category A, an owner gets R2,000 per appearance and the trainer R400. For B it’s R2,500 and R500, and for C R3,000 and R750.

These trainer categories are the same as those applying to Cape Racing’s groundbreaking new ownership syndication scheme, whereby winners in the various categories get bonus prizes heavily weighted in favour of the smaller yards.

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The visitor winning bonuses will remain at R10,000 to the owner and R10,000 to the trainer for non-festival meetings. This increases to R50,000 to the owner and R50,000 to the trainer at a festival meeting, but does not apply to races with stakes in excess of R500,000.

Subsidies for transport and free stable rental are also offered to out-of- province runners.

Much of the largesse comes courtesy of Racecape’s principal backer Hollywoodbets, the bookmaking firm that is pumping vast amounts of money into racing around the country.

Said Devin Heffer, Hollywoodbets communications manager: “We have already seen the tangible spin-offs for local racing and the overall upliftment of the sport in the Cape goes hand-in-hand with enhanced job security and job opportunities in the sport and ancillary functions in the region. We are proud to be associated with innovation and out of the box thinking on this level.”