History

Horse racing in South Africa started in 1797 and the first recorded raceclub meeting took place in 1802. The Jockey Club of Southern Africa, the organisation which regulates the sport of thoroughbred horseracing, was founded in 1882. The Jockey Club is probably unique in that it regulates the sport in two independent countries namely South Africa and Zimbabwe. Its head office is in Johannesburg and it has regional offices in Cape Town, Durban, Harare (Zimbabwe) and Port Elizabeth.

Recent developments have seen a combined tote for the whole of South Africa called SAFTOTE. This was not prevalent under the old system that had three different totes in the three main regions of the country.

Present State of SA racing

Significant changes are taking place in South African racing, where racing was typically operated by autonomous racing clubs. New structures are have been established. The three former racing clubs in the Johannesburg area transfered their assets and those of the regional totalisator organisation and racing services organisations / facilities to a public company called Phumelela Gaming and Leisure Limited ("Phumelela"). Phumelela has also absorbed all racing clubs in the Free State, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape and operate racing in those regions. In the province of Kwazulu / Natal, the three racing clubs, joint racing services / activities and the totalisator system have been absorbed into gold circle racing and gaming - a single operating body. In the Cape Town region the two racing clubs merged with the newly formed Gold Circle from Kwa-Zulu Natal to form a body that rivals Phumelela. This means that Gold Circle control two of the big race centres in South Africa, but the greater tote turnover is prevalent in the Gauteng region controlled by Phumelela.

Phumelela-Gold Enterprises (PGE), the partnership between Phumelela and Gold Circle, concluded an agreement on 21 May 2004 with Racing UK, the holder of television and related race day data rights to 30 of the major racecourses in the United Kingdom. PGE now has the exclusive worldwide rights outside the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland to exploit the television broadcast of their horseraces from which PGE will earn management fees plus a share of the revenue generated once minimum threshold levels have been exceeded. Concurrently PGE and the UK Totalizator have agreed to commingle totalizator pools on UK and South African racing. PGE has licensed bookmakers in Sri Lanka, the Caribbean and Germany, and totalizator operators in Russia, Armenia, France, Kenya, Ghana and Italy to receive and bet on the UK and South African racing products. Data licensed exclusively to PGE by Racing UK continues to be offered in the international market place by the previous broadcaster and an application has been made to the United Kingdom courts to prevent the unlawful use of these intellectual property rights with the court case currently scheduled for early October.