Cyril’s day at the races – but where are the winners?

Not much surprises horse racing people. The nature of the beast is shocks and upsets – to the extent that they don’t really shock or upset; it’s all just cliched nomenclature.

However, a few folks sat bolt upright, wide-eyed, when President Cyril Ramaphosa started talking about the gee-gees this week.

The Prez has shown not the slightest interest in racing until now – unlike predecessor JZ, who liked to attend the Durban July, get hot tips from “connections” and be photographed with fistfuls of cash winnings.

This week Ramaphosa waded into the deepest, murkiest waters of horse racing when he made a bombshell announcement about Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s 2019 report and findings on the state of the industry.

The President’s office said he was seeking to overturn Mkhwebane’s order that Parliament establish a new body to regulate racing. In the report, she argued that the current set-up was white-dominated, captured by an elite and carrying the taint of corruption, among other nasty things.

But we mustn’t jump to the conclusion that Ramaphosa is siding with the racing establishment against a woman seen by many as a champion of downtrodden black masses. Definitely not.

Presidency director-general Cassius Lubisi said the objection was on the technical and legalistic grounds that, by ordering the creation of a new regulatory body, the PP was trying to usurp the powers of Parliament and the President – as she’d done with her infamous Reserve Bank instructions.

Ramaphosa won that round with a knockout blow and is clearly aiming for another hefty punch in his ongoing battle with Mkhwebane, who appears to have specifically targeted him and his allies on behalf of the shadowy forces of “fightback” – aka “the Zuma-ites”.

Mkhwebane currently faces a blizzard of opposition to various of her official reports – not to mention a parliamentary procedure to get her the sack – and Ramaphosa has chosen the moment to open a new front of attack.

Racing operator Phumelela, the main “villain” of the PP’s report, has already won a court interdict against any of its orders beings carried out – pending a judicial review.

Many rational, objective people in racing have mixed feelings about this whole business.

A reading of the PP’s report is alarming – in more ways than one. The first thing that strikes one is the amateurishness of the document: its flimsy legal basis, faulty logic, selective reasoning and seemingly random conclusions.

Then there is the question of many gripes raised having come from one Phindiwe Kema, a divisive figure who claims to be a thoroughbred horse breeder and who appears to have got Mkhwebane to threaten Phumelela with investigative harassment unless it pays Kema a R10-million legal settlement.

But the PP document is also worrying because of the issues raised: not least the way now-disgraced businessman Markus Jooste was able to dominate and manipulate racing in South Africa for decades.

We all know racing is not in a good space at present – bleeding money and support with little sign of cavalry coming to the rescue – and much of the woe is due to how the game has been run.

So, a shake-up is sorely needed.

It’s just that there’s a strong suspicion the shake-up prescribed by Mkhwebane isn’t the right one at all. Indeed, the deathly hand of government intervention would surely consign racing to the grave. Government is unable to fix a pothole in a small town, so it surely cannot handle the infinitely more complex affairs of the nags.

The case for racing to put its own house in order – and quickly – is obvious.

Evidence in the PP report of how, at the time of corporatisation post-1994, R13.9 million from the old racing clubs was allocated for grooms’ accommodation but was siphoned off in other directions cannot be ignored any longer. Some 25 years later, grooms are still periodically striking over this and other festering issues.

Allegations of wrongdoing in closing down racecourses and selling off land must be thoroughly investigated. And there’s more.

The time is overdue for a racing “Codesa” to plot a progressive way forward – before political bulls get a chance to barge into the china shop.

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