“The Tricolores”, Pamela Isdell, Gaynor Rupert and Ravi Naidoo (middle trio from left to right), celebrate Future Swing’s victory in the Gr 3 Glorious Goodwood Chairmans Cup, which fittingly happened on L’Ormarins King’s Plate day, the day Gaynor has made famous. (Picture: Wayne Marks)
Passionate Durban-born racing owner Ravi Naidoo was attracted to the sport of horseracing as an eight-year-old by the country’s most iconic race, the Durban July, and this year he makes his debut as an owner in the Hollywoodbets sponsored event and for good measure has two runners.
He is the part-owner of the fancied Justin Snaith-trained Future Swing and the outright owner of the Sean Tarry-trained Cousin Casey.
He said, “I feel only gratitude, and no pressure nor anxiety about our horses in the July. I’ve been aware of the July since age 8… I used to pore over the ubiquitous Rothmans July posters in the 70’s , mesmerised by these inscrutable animals. It’s amazing to own/share in two contenders (by the way, if posters are still produced I want a few for keepsakes!), and to be fair, while we’ve just had a winter solstice, I bet scientists could prove that this is the longest week in the Southern Hemisphere! I have been counting down for days… I even created an alternate HDJ advent calendar for my partners! Perhaps the biggest gift is the friendship we share .. and our partners are convening from across three continents this weekend. I can’t wait … bring it on!”
It is not the first time Ravi has been counting down.
He said, “We had the misfortune of a scratching a day before the July two years ago, when Zapatillas was injured.”
Ravi’s involvement in racing has been interesting and his history in the sport is mentioned further down in this article.
But one of his involvements was as a UCT student when researching the effect of EPO on athletic performance.
With encouragement from Professor Tim Noakes, he decided to do a post grad study on EPO, a naturally occurring cytokine which was a controversial topic in athletics at the time as there were practices being used to manipulate its abundance in the bloodstreams of unscrupulous athletes.
He thus regularly accompanied veterinarian Bob McDaniel on his rounds at the Cape Town training tracks, which always ended with him taking some vials of blood back to UCT for study purposes having been drawn from racehorse’s neck veins.
Therefore, he could thus be well qualified to comment on the current controversy surrounding the testing on race day of TCO2 levels in pending runners.
Ravi said, “I am a lapsed scientist .. I haven’t been anywhere near a lab since my twenties.. but here’s my take though. Firstly, I have empathy for the NHA… it’s a tough, thankless job being a regulatory authority – and keeping order and probity across the motley assortment of competing interests in the sport. I trust that the process will be refined, through practice … it’s early days, and while its been successful in exposing the most egregious outliers, which is laudable and necessary, there has been some collateral damage, especially for those at the margin. The industry must persevere in improving it, iteratively (doing something again and again). We must compete fairly in a clean sport, in this beautiful collaboration between man and animal, where the contestation is about strategy, smarts, strength and striving… sans shenanigans.”
Ravi was born and grew up in Durban.
He recounted his history in racing before last season’s Hollywoodbets Cape Guines, in which the long awaited clash between his champion Cousin Casey and the new kid on the block Charles Dickens finally happened.
He said, “I am definitely not a Johnny-come-lately. I have had a long love affair with racing ever since In Full Flight won the July in 1972. I was only eight years old, but can remember my father backing the winner. After that I used to read the form and was fascinated by the pictures showing the 800m, 400m and finishing positions. I used to know all the course records etc too.”
He continued, “Then in the early 1980s members of my family became an advance guard during the apartheid years by being granted their colours, so they were pioneers and owned a good horse called Casal Garcia.”
This Harry Hotspur filly won seven races and was multiple stakes-placed, including a narrow second in the Tibouchina.
Ravi also recalled her breaking a course record once.
Later, Ravi went down to UCT.
At the time of his EPO research he contacted Alec Hogg, who was at the time publishing the Racing Digest, to tell him he was in a good position to talk to trainers.
“So I wrote for the Racing Digest for a while,” he said.
Later, with his second pay cheque working for an advertising company, he bought a 10% share in a Dancing Champ filly who was a three-parts sister to Olympic Duel.
He began expanding his interest, but it all ground to a halt when a consortium he had joined bought into an expensive import called Habaayib.
This horse injured a canon bone in his third SA start and Ravi decided to take a complete sabbatical from ownership. He did not even excercise his stallion rights.
It was at a L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate after-party a few years ago where he was encouraged by Gaynor Rupert to own again.
She invited him to join the L’Ormarins Syndicate and he accepted.
Later, Gaynor, Pamela Isdell and Ravi started a fun group in which they buy three horses at the National Yearling Sales per year and race them together.
They call themselves “The Tricolores” and draw to see whose colours the horses will run in. The person who draws the colours is also allowed to choose the trainer.
One of their first runners together was Zapatillas, who won the Grade 2 WSB Guineas.
Future Swing is also owned by “The Tricolores” and Ravi won the draw so this Drakenstein Stud-bred Futura gelding races in his eyecatching French grey with violet cap colours.
As the bug had bitten again, Ravi began buying for himself and hence the purchase of Cousin Casey.
Future Swing will be ridden from draw four by the peerless Richard Fourie and is currently a 6/1 shot with the sponsor, while Cousin Casey has a tough draw of 15 and will be ridden by S’Manga Khumalo.
Justin Snaith has won the July five times and Richard Fourie has won it three times, while Sean Tarry and S’Manga Khumalo have both won it twice, so Ravi has fine teams representing him in the big race.
