Miller leaves Caymanas Park after 28 years

SVREL makes racing secretary post redundant

SUPREME VENTURES Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) yesterday made the post of racing secretary redundant, effectively ending Denzil Miller Jr’s more than 28-year association with Caymanas Park.

Miller, who started as a deputy starter in the late 1980s before rising through the ranks to become acting racing secretary in the early 1990s, was in his post up to Sunday’s 2000 Guineas race meet.

However, SVREL Executive Chairman Michael Bernard told The Gleaner that despite the traditional norm for a racetrack to have a racing secretary, a decision was taken to make the post redundant in a restructuring exercise.

“We have restructured the racing operations. In this restructuring process, we have disaggregated the responsibilities, as it currently is, of the racing secretary, and subsumed part under the director of racing, Christopher Armond, and the other parts under the general manager for racetrack operations, Anthony Shoucair,” Bernard explained.

“The effect is that the position of racing secretary no longer exists, made redundant, leading to the redundancy of Miller,” Bernard pointed out, adding: “We have not been able to identify any other position we could actually fit him into.”

Miller’s previous duties of supervising the racing office will now be the remit of Armond, whereas responsibility for management of the racetrack, property and facilities rest with Shoucair, a former deputy chairman of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission, who joined SVREL shortly after the entity took over operations at Caymanas Park last year March.