Flamingo Park to close in December amid ongoing financial pressures

There will be only seven racecourses left in South Africa by the end of the year following an announcement by racing operator Phumelela that Flamingo Park is set to close in December.

At one time there were over 90 racing clubs in South Africa, each with their own racecourse, but the Kimberley course is the third to shut its doors in the last six years following Arlington in Port Elizabeth and Clairwood in Durban. Gosforth Park, Newmarket, Bloemfontein and Milnerton have also been closed this century.

Former Plumpton chief executive Patrick Davis, who earlier this year returned to his previous job as Phumelela racing executive after a stint as racing director of Weatherbys, said: "The decision is based purely on commercial factors.

"A financial analysis confirmed the racecourse was losing around R23.5 million [£1.27m/€1.41m] a year and it has the lowest TAB [betting shop] turnover of any local race meeting at around R3m [£162,810/€180,000].

"It is also one of the least cost-effective courses at which to stage meetings as we have to bring in people like stipendiary stewards and judges from other centres and so the last meeting there will take place on Monday, December 9. Flamingo Park will close as both a training facility and a racecourse.”

The course, where racing takes place on sand and caters for the lowest-grade horses, stages 36 meetings a year and 20 of these will be allocated to either the Vaal in Johannesburg or Fairview in Port Elizabeth. The other 16 will be lost.

Local trainer Cliff Miller opposed the decision in an email to the Sporting Post racing paper, saying: "I have given everything to this place for 43 years. Some of us have property and we can't just pack up and go. All the horses can't go to other centres."

Phumelela runs five of the seven remaining racecourses with the other two – Greyville and Scottsville – both located in Durban and operated by Gold Circle.

Both companies are under pressure because of falling betting revenues, believed to be a result of the struggling South African economy. The two operators are fighting a losing battle to keep prize-money in line with inflation which averages between four and six per cent a year.

South Africa races on every day of the year, with the exception of Christmas Day, and Phumelela has come under attack from the state’s public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who has called for Phumelela's share of the six per cent betting levy to be channelled to a new racing authority.

Phumelela, which is a public company quoted on the Johannesburg stock exchange, has successfully applied to the courts for an interdict preventing her action being implemented until it is taken on judicial review.

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