Bloomberg responds
ROBERT Bloomberg, director of the Western Province Regional Racing Association, has responded to the jockeys' criticism of the criteria for the Cape Racing & Breeders' Awards.
‘We have a WC Industry Liaison Committee that met as recently as 17 August and where the WC jockey's have representation. It is therefore a source of great disappointment to us that this was not even raised by them at said meeting and that we had to read about this in the press first.
‘We believe that the WC is the strongest racing region in the country and the Board of WPRA wished to endorse this by rewarding excellence coupled with work ethic hence our previous decision to abide by the national log statistics.
‘Last season, Greg Cheyne (3rd) rode a massive 52 winners more than Grant Van Niekerk (10th) and we believe that he was a worthy champion.
‘Karl Neisius who chooses not to travel the majority of the time is quoted as saying that this award "makes a mockery of the honours board," but we would venture to suggest by way of an example that when Andrew Fortune won the SA champion jockeys title at Equus as a WC domiciled rider, he was not crowned as regional champion and that this makes a far bigger mockery of champion status.
'Each region has their own guidelines that they follow and we are not duty bound to fall into line with any. Our criteria is clearly published and available prior to each season. Having said that, if we receive an official request to revert to the old system from the Coastal (WC) Jockeys Association , which we have yet to receive, the Board will certainly consider such representations.’ -