Greg Blank was an immensely popular and passionate member of the South African racing community and his passing over the weekend left many industry people shocked and saddened.
His good friend and often-times racing partner Larry Nestadt said, “He was a special person. He was an absolute gentleman. He never complained about anything, never said a bad word about anybody and was always full of the joys of life.”
Larry met Greg through his brother and friends JJ van der Linden and Gary Burg and others in the mid-1980s.
They had a couple of things in common.
Greg was a well-known whizzkid stockbroker and Larry was well established in the financial game as a founding member of Investec.
Their other common interest was horseracing and they later both became prolific members of the Tawny Syndicate and were often partners in the Tawny horses.
Larry’s career in racing ownership started with the founding of the Tawny Syndicate and Greg, who was in racing before joining the syndicate, became a member later on.
Another founding member of The Tawny Syndicate, Jeff Shill, said about Greg, “You don’t find people like him. He was a guy with no rank, no malice. People did terrible things to him and he would just say, ‘Well what can I do, I’ve got to move on.’ His fortitude in fighting his illness too. I saw him in March when his condition was bad and I said to him ‘Greg I’ve never seen a person who is so positive’. And he replied, ‘Well what is the alternative, you have got to fight.’”
The founding of the Tawny Syndicate is worth repeating.
Jeff was mad about racing, going every Saturday and sometimes on Wednesday too, and revealed, “I took Larry to the Dingaans once and he left straight after the main race because he said it was boring! But then we bought this horse called Tawny Sky together … it was the worst thing that ever happened to us!”
Trainer Roy Howe walked into a shop owned by Jeff’s family one day and Jeff Struck up a conversation with him about owning a horse. When Jeff later handed him an envelope with R5,000 in it to buy a horse Roy said he would need at least 20 grand to buy a decent horse. So Jeff visited the Jockey Club to inquire about racing syndicates and he then managed to persuade Larry and others to come in with him in order for Roy Howe to buy a horse or two at the National Yearling Sale.
Howe shrewdly identified Golden Thatch as a new sire who would produce precocious two-year-olds and the first of the syndicate’s runners was a Golden Thatch colt called Tawny Sky.
Tawny Sky duly won on debut over 800m in late 1984, a race in which two of the runners were strongly fancied.
Jeff recalls how excited everybody was including Larry and added, “We said this game is easy, let’s get into it.”
The Tawny Syndicate rapidly expanded, but at the same time it became an equine administrative business.
So owners could sign up their horses with the Tawny Syndicate and everything would be looked after for them, including colours renewals, reconciling veterinary bills and everything possible in racing and breeding that had to be taken care of from an administrative point of view, including managing stallions.
Greg first became involved with the Tawny Syndicate in 1986 just to have all of his horses and his ownership concerns administered by them.
He then asked to be partners or was invited to be a partner in many of the horses Tawny purchased and he became active in their breeding arm too.
Jeff recalled, “We all got on well with Greg, so we put him into quite a few horses.”
Larry said, “Greg was passionate about racing and breeding. He was a very smart guy. He understood the game backwards. He understood breeding as well. He was obviously a bit of a punter too, which I wasn’t, so although we were partners in many horses we weren’t always on the same wavelength when dealing with horses!”
Jeff had fond memories of Greg’s punting too and said, “He loved punting. He was really clued up on studying form and people were always phoning him with information. Over and above what you can glean from form you also have to speak to people, and especially trainers, just to know what the yard expect.”
Although Greg loved a punt he was never a big punter.
Greg played a big part in the expansion of the Tawny Syndicate as he was very well connected.
The equine administrative side of the syndicate expanded to such an extent that Jeff was able to leave his job as an accountant and concentrate full time on this business. He was managing as many as 1500 horses at one stage.
Greg’s interest in racing was inspired by his father, despite the latter’s initial lack of success as an owner (he apparently did not have a winner in racing ownership for some ten years but then owned many winners, including a filly called Dancing Danzig in the early 1990s who won Gr 1s).
Greg owned many Gr 1 winners in his career.
Jeff listed most of them, “Greg bred Pointing North with us and we won the Cape Guineas with him (before being purchased by an overseas concern), he was a partner in Young Rake (who won the Champion Stakes (Champion Challenge) twice and was controversially denied a dead-heat win in the July), he was a partner in North By Northwest (SA Derby, Daily News 2000), Palace Line (SA Nursery, Premiers Champion Stakes and went on to win races in Singapore), he was a partner in Forward Filly (Allan Robertson, Thekwini Stakes) and Australian-bred Suntagonal (Premier’s Champion Stakes), he bred and owned Link Man with us (Gold Medallion), he was a partner in Vardy (Queen’s Plate) and he was a partner in Bull Valley (Tsogo Sun Sprint, Mercury Sprint)”
Larry said Greg had also had a share in Rakeen.
There were probably others, but Jeff did not have his database with him.
Greg’s biggest disappointment in racing was the judge’s decision in the 2000 July in which, after a seemingly interminable wait, he controversially gave the verdict to El Picha at the expense of Young Rake, who many believed had got up to dead-heat at least.
Greg said recently, “The only time Larry and I saw a photo finish of the race was nine months later at Newmarket. They called us up to the commentary room and we saw it there on a computer. That’s when we realised they had blown up the picture 400%. After 300% the pixels become distorted. But it was too late. It was the biggest travesty in racing ever.”
One of the most interesting horses Tawny owned was Toreador. They had bought a horse from Coolmore and Jeff Shill discovered this horse had had a colic operation that had not been disclosed, so he complained continuously and eventually Coolmore allowed them to go over and select another horse as a replacement. They were given a frosty reception and were allowed to choose one of the three horses displayed to them. Tawny chose Toreador and Jeff said Mike de Kock believed he could have been a champion had he not had an injury to his hind. He did win a few races and turned out to be a useful stallion. He was sire of both Link Man and Bull Valley, two of Greg’s Gr 1 winners.
Greg tapered his owning in his later days and raced mainly in the East Cape with Alan Greeff.
He and Larry still have a current horse together.
Greg’s funeral was due to be at Pinelands at 1 p.m. on Tuesday but was postponed until Wednesday due to the weather.
He was 67 years of age.
He is survived by his wife Dawn, son Lex, and daughter Ella.
Turf Talk send sincere condolences to the family, friends and racing connections of a fine gentleman.
