Legends Of The Turf: Rare Profiles From South African Horseracing History (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781456462772)

CHARL PRETORIUS (43) is South Africa's most accredited horseracing journalist and an award-winning writer in mainstream journalism. In a stretch of over 24 years in newspapers, magazines and electronic media he has served on most major dailies in Johannesburg. He started his career at the Afrikaans Newspaper Beeld followed by stints at Sunday Times, Business Day and The Citizen, where he was instrumental in launching the popular tabloid, Racing Express as founding editor in 2003. Pretorius also edited Computaform, contributed to SA Horseman and still writes on occasion for its successor, Parade Magazine. He played a pioneering role in the advent of SA horseracing's major websites in the mid 2000s, launching mikedekockracing.com in 2004, seantarryracing.co.za in 2006, freeracer.co.za in 2007 and racingweb.co.za in conjunction with the Moneyweb Group in 2009. Pretorius is known for his controversial articles, some of which have landed him in hot water. At the time of going to print he is facing two charges of "bringing horseracing into disrepute", lodged by South Africa's National Horseracing Authority (NHA), something he describes as "disgraceful, humiliating and being executed with a flagrant disregard for Freedom Of Speech". The ruinous aspects of officialdom have not stifled this racing hack's love for the sport of racing and his deep admiration for its many heroes, too many of them unsung.