Young Documentary Maker Creates Singapore Horse Racing ‘Time Capsule’
Filmmaker James Gray grew up around the Kranji stables and when it was announced Singapore racing would be closed, he set about paying tribute to the humans and horses that made Kranji special.
THE SHOCK DECISION to stop racing in Singapore and close Kranji Racecourse hit the close-knit community hard.
After witnessing the distress the news caused throughout Kranji Racecourse, aspiring documentary filmmaker James Gray was determined to not let the people who work with the horses – and the horses themselves – be forgotten.
With the support of Idol Horse, Gray, 22, has produced, filmed and edited the documentary “Pakcik-Pakcik Saya: My Uncles” as a tribute to the stable staff he sees as extended family and a comment on the creeping urbanisation of the city he grew up in.
“I made this film to be a time capsule, just something that will make sure we can always remember the people that were involved with the stable over so many years, and how much time and effort was put in by them,” Gray said. “I wanted to recognise the community that has been formed here.
“Even after this place is bulldozed, I hope we will still be able to remember it. It is going to be gone soon and I never want to forget it.”
The son of New Zealand trainer Stephen Gray and wife Bridget, James was born in Singapore and after growing up with racing all around him, came to see the stable staff as extended family.
In June last year, the Singapore Turf Club announced racing would cease in the city after more than 180 years and the 120-hectare Kranji Racecourse would be redeveloped as residential land.
It meant the loss of jobs for staff who had spent a lifetime dedicated to the care of horses.
“It is really sad,” Gray said. “These people that have such a niche, specialised skill that goes back centuries and now have to go and take any job they can.”
The film features interviews with stable staff and their raw responses show the human effects of the coldhearted government decision and process that gave little consideration to the future of staff or the horses they care for.
“These guys really opened up to me, and I appreciate that,” Gray said. “To see how people were treated, it feels unfair.”
Gray may have simply set out to create a ‘time capsule’ but the film artfully tells the story of racing’s often unsung heroes, the stable staff, and puts a much-needed focus on the welfare of the approximately 700 horses that required rehoming when the decision to close Kranji was made.
An interview with Singapore’s eight-time champion jockey-turned-trainer Saimee Bin Jumaat, who spent the last few years working as assistant to Stephen Gray, highlights the frustration and sadness of those whose lives have been turned upside down by the closure.
“Singapore (government) manages everything well, you have to give this to them, if they want to do something, they will do it very, very well,” Saimee says in the film. “It’s just that they didn’t want this place to blossom, they didn’t want this place to carry on.”
Saimee’s astute observations cut through to the callous way racing’s participants have been treated, citing successive STC chairmen with “no idea what racing is all about.”
“And who is the one who put them there? It’s the government. And they are all government people. Why? To finish it off. And eventually they finish it off. They say, ‘Ok, that’s it. We want this land back.’”
One of the most touching scenes is with horseman Vincent Al Edwin Ebenezer who posits that officials lacked knowledge of horses.
“Don’t mind us, where are the horses all going?,” he asks in the film “They are just like our kid, you know, like our own child.”
“Just say you want to retire the horses, just put them in the paddock, but you still always have to keep an eye on them … if you don’t keep an eye on them the feet will grow all wrong and long and then they might get sick in the paddock. This kind of animal, we always have to look after.”
Gray shot the entire film himself and it frames Kranji Racecourse’s tropical beauty as a stark contrast to Singapore’s somewhat soulless, and rapidly expanding, urban areas.
“Singapore can be a place that is so metallic and urban, there is a main highway right outside the main gates at Kranji,” he said. “But inside, it just felt so warm and I only have positive memories of that place.”
Gray, who reached the rank of Lieutenant in the 9th Singapore Infantry Regiment during his two years of compulsory national service in Singapore, is now in the third year of a dual-degree in Film and International Business at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.
How To Watch The Film
Click on the link below to watch James Gray’s documentary film, Pakcik-Pakcik Saya: My Uncles
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