The Namibia Horse Racing Association (NHRA) will host the third edition of the Mobile Telecommunications (MTC) Summer Cup on Saturday at Chaka in the Gobabis area of the Omaheke Region.
The first edition of the MTC cup was known as the Winter Cup and was held in Okahandja last year while the second edition winter cup was held in Rehoboth in June this year.
NHRA president, Marthinus de Waal during the launch of the cup here on Tuesday said the event will go on as planned by NHRA and is expected to attract a huge crowd of horse racing sport fans from Gobabis town as well as Chaka.
De Waal said more than 120 horses are expected to compete in different categories with popular horses such as You Touch my Heart, Starlile, Burundi and Visigoth expected to set the event ablaze.
The president said his association decided to take the event to Chaka because the area has many horse supporters and taking horse racing to the community is important so they too become familiar with the sport.
Following the death of veteran jockey Victus ‘Concrete’ Bohitile on 06 November 2021 after he hit his head against the starting stalls at the event held in Rehoboth, De Waal has indicated that there are more precautionary measures set in place.
These measures he said, include the acquisition of new starting gates for the safety of the jockeys adding that the association plans to engage with its main sponsor to find amicable solutions that will ensure the future safety of the athletes and their horses.
“We are looking forward to approaching MTC to help us in designing our own starting stalls because the ones we were using now also contributed to the Rehoboth accident, therefore we are in the process to buy safer starting stalls to prevent such accidents in future,” he said.
Meanwhile, MTC Corporate Communications Practitioner Fikameni Mathias has welcomed the NHRA initiatives stating that the safety of the horse riders can’t be compromised and should be the first priority at any event.
“At MTC we believe in athletes because they are the ones that are participating and competing, we want them to be treated well at every event to avoid unnecessary accidents,” said Mathias.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
