Hollywoodbets’ Brand And Communications’ manager Devin Heffer is Molly’s joint racing Personality Of The Year (Picture: Candiese Lenferna)
Dave Mollet’s views are independent and today he publishes his opinion on the racing stars of the year in his annual unofficial awards column
BLUMBERG AND HEFFER IN THE PUBLIC EYE AND NOW HOUSEHOLD NAMES IN RACING
Molly looks back on 2025 and selects his leading personalities, top trainer, top jockey and, of course, top horse
Dave Mollett
In her end-of-year letter to ROA members, Natalie Turner hits the nail on the head in her opening sentence. She states “it has been a year of passion, perseverance, progress and, above all, people.”
Yes, people as much as horses have been in the public eye, and my two PERSONALITIES OF THE YEAR are Betway’s Jonathan Blumberg and Hollywood’s, Devin Heffer.
Jonathan Blumberg, Head of Customer Experience at Betway, has really made his presence felt in the last five months of the year and – in August – announced that the stake for the Betway Summer Cup had risen to R6 million.
He said: “Betway are proud to continue our partnership with 4Racing and the Summer Cup. Our country has a long and rich history with horseracing and we see this event as an opportunity to continue connecting with fans, supporting the sport and contributing to a day that reflects the vibrancy of the country.”
Interesting to know what their reaction will be in 2026 to Hollywoods recent announcement of a R10 million stake for the Durban July.
Formed in 2006 with headquarters in Malta, Betway is huge in Europe with their biggest sponsorship being the Premier League in the UK. They are partners with Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City.
South Africa is a small fish in the Betway pond yet – to 4Racing’s credit – they have built a great partnership with the company and Jonathan has a close association with popular presenter, Clyde Basel. His “Weighed To Win” show with top tipster, Darryl Maree, is sponsored by Betway and has a huge following.
There is no doubt that this year’s Betway Summer Cup was the best to date. “The energy on course reminded us why this race holds such a special place in our sporting calendar” was Natalie Turner’s viewpoint.
One would imagine it was Jonathan’s idea to appoint Mike De Kock as a Betway ambassador. He is – after all – SA’s best-known trainer on both the home and international fronts and continues to chalk up Gr 1 wins.
Mike is always quick to point out that his operation is now a joint venture with his son, Matt, and that will be viewed by Jonathan as positive for the future.
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One wonders whether Hollywood founder, Owen Heffer, wakes up in the morning and asks himself if this is really happening.
He would be the first to admit he started out from very humble beginnings but the huge expansion of Hollywood is evident in their adverts.
For example, the latest edition of “Winning Ways” proclaimed the following:
* Another big Shooting Star payout – punter wins R1 million for R1.
* Big Soccer payout – R799 962 won for R10.
Owen will be immensely proud that his son, Devin, has taken to the sport like a duck to water and Hollywoods Brand & Communications manager is very much in the public eye and often interviewed when one of their horses wins which is pretty often. In April that total reached 650.
“I’m just very proud of Owen and the whole Hollywood family,” said Devin in an interview. “But It’s not all congratulations now. We’ve got a big task ahead of us but we’ve hit the ground running.”
“No time for talking, only for doing,” was perhaps Devin’s best quip this year and he has combined his passion and intellect to make his own waves in racing. They have acted quickly to improve Greyville and also establish their own training centre at Ashburton.
In contrast to Betway, Hollywood are big in racehorse ownership which is brilliant for the sport as it means jobs for hundreds who otherwise might battle to make a living.
I would imagine it’s quite a task for Anthony Delpech to not only keep track of the large number of Hollywood horses but also trainers some of whom are starting out on the bottom rung of the racing ladder. Not to mention the fact that Hollywood horses are named in English, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Afrikaans and even French!
It hasn’t been all wine and roses for Hollywood for – right now – their acquisition of former top three year-old, One Stripe, was proving a costly venture at least until his scintillating victory last Friday at Gulfstream Park. First they had to buy the horse, get him to America and pay his training fees in dollars. No escaping the fact that better was expected from the colt in the Breeders Cup.
However, the exploits of Hollywood’s steeplechaser, Il Etait Temps, has probably balanced the overseas costs as the Willie Mullins inmate has emerged as the new star in the jumping world and Devin and his team are sure to be headed to Cheltenham in March.
Owners will be delighted to learn of the R10 million stake for the Hollywoodbets Durban July but perhaps the sponsors missed a trick here. With all the festive season distractions, they should perhaps have delayed the announcement to New Years Day with the ad proclaiming “Hollwoodbets kicks off 2026 with huge announcement.”
My TRAINER OF THE YEAR is Alan Greeff.
Rather like the dominance of Charlie Appleby in the UK, we’ve become accustomed to Justin Snaith walking off with the trainers championship and he deserves the plaudits for that. Yet Alan – from not being in the top five for the 2023/24 season – now became a force to be reckoned with and this was mainly due to his decision to raid the Cape, KZN and Gauteng with his top horses.
Alan has continued his good form in the new season and statistics to Dec 14 show him in fourth place in the trainers table with 58 winners – two more than Justin Snaith.
Of course, Alan has the luxury of having the services of Richard Fourie for most Fairview meetings – rather like a football side having Erling Haaland leading your attack for every game.
At the Eastern Cape racing awards in September, Alan swept the boards with six of his charges winning seven of the 11 equine trophies.
The horses who made it such a memorable year for the stable included Direct Hit (Allan Robertson at Scottsville and Gr 3 Nursery at Kenilworth), Anotherdanceforme (Golden Slipper on Durban July day), Golden Palm (SA Nursery at Turffontein) and My Best Shot.
My JOCKEY OF THE YEAR is Serino Moodley.
Basically, Serino has gone from being a journeyman jockey who rode winners in his home base of KZN but he’s blossomed this year and – despite being sidelined through injury in recent weeks – is still prominent on the national jockeys table.
He is finding his services in demand not only in KZN but also in the Cape and Gauteng with several top stables taking note of his sudden rise to prominence.
Serino, who got interested in racing through showjumping, joined the jockeys academy in 2012 but left at the end of that year for personal reasons. He then joined James Maree’s Work Riders programme and was granted his professional jockeys licence in 2019.
Born in Johannesburg but now living in Hillcrest, Serino got the worst 29th birthday present when – three days after that date (Nov 26) – he was injured after a spill in the Betway Summer Cup and has been on the sidelines since then.
Nevertheless, he said in an interview this year that “if you get the chances, you have to produce the goods.” One can be sure Serino will do just that when he returns to the saddle.
One must also make mention of newly-crowned champion jockey, Gavin Lerena, who would be the first to admit he had a rollercoaster year. He made the UK papers after the incident with Jason Gates but – since then – has produced his “A” game at every meeting. Interesting to know how he feels being interviewed by his wife, Vikki!
My HORSE-OF-THE-YEAR is Buffalo Storm Cody.
Over a beer or three, my good buddy and top commentator, Nico Kritsiotis, narrowed it down (in alphabetical order) to Buffalo Storm Cody, Dave The King and Gladatorian.
Nico made a case for Green Point winner, Dave The King, but I pointed out that Gladatorian had beaten him three lengths in the Champions Cup at the end of July and that is an important Gr 1 race.
Eventually, we agreed that Buffalo Storm Cody should get the nod and I felt his Mercury Sprint (Gr 1) win was the clincher.
Interesting that Turf Talk reported that esteemed pundit, Karel Miedema (getting as long in the tooth as me!), stated on his website that he rated Buffalo’s recent Vaal win (Dec 11) as his performance of the current season and had the sprinter at the top of his ratings for this season.
Anyway, it’s hats off to trainer Tony Peter who managed to keep the Kestorm Investments owned star at the top of his game throughout the year.
