Mark Truter
“My name is Mark Truter. I am 59 years old and I am reapplying for my jockeys license.” So reads the letter currently doing the rounds of the jockey room, trying to rally support for retired jockey Mark Truter to renew his riding license, roughly 35 years after originally hanging up his boots.
Racing is full of colourful characters, but I’d venture to say, few as colourful as Mark and an afternoon in his company is a rollercoaster romp of tales of high adventure through racing’s good old, bad old days.
About Mark
Mark started life on 30 June 1956 and, along with his two older sisters, Mark was surrendered to the Marsh Memorial Home orphanage in Cape Town. It’s not an experience he seems bitter or upset about, although he admits that having biological parents did put off any prospective adoptive ones.
Mark stayed at the orphanage until he was 10, then went to live with his father for a while, before being reclaimed by his mother who had remarried and whose husband wanted a son. It was during this time that he was introduced to some local bookmakers, who noting his small size, recommended that he consider a career as a jockey.
Mark was duly accepted by the Jockey Academy and joined the Mariannhill facility in Pinetown, alongside one Basil Marcus. “I’d never been on a horse before, but picked it up just like that,” Mark laughs. “After 6 months I got my training papers and after 12 months I got my racing papers and got sent to Cape Town a year early. I was just turning 15.”
He was indentured to Peter Kannemeyer yard. Mark was third string jockey behind Garth Puller and Paddy McGivern and not entirely happy with the opportunities he received. “Terrance Millard made more use of me than Kannemeyer! If I wanted a good ride, I learned how to make a horse work badly at home. It’s a talent!” he says with a broad grin. “One day, I was approached by a rather large and powerful racing personality and asked to do something I didn’t agree with in a race. I’d prefer not to drag up all the details but the upshot is that I refused and life got a bit difficult after that. Word was out and anyone who was associated with this person was too scared to give me rides. I was even offered an opportunity to tell my story to one of the local papers, but when they heard the names involved, they refused to print anything.”
“I resorted to poaching crayfish for a while to make a living. It paid around R50/day back then and considering that riding was paying R10 a ride, twice a week, the joke was on them as I was making a packet and living like a king! Chris Snaith was training in Muizenberg at the time and was lucky enough to be independent, so he gave me rides. I rode quite a lot of winners for him. But Garth (Puller) would watch all the up and coming horses and poach the rides. I felt I was doing the work and that it was unfair not to get the rides, so I fell out with Chris and went back to diving. A friend warned that we were being watched, so we went up to PE to look for crayfish up there. There wasn’t enough to make a living and I didn’t enjoy the perlemoen scene, so I went to check out the racing.”
Life in PE
“I fell in with the Boxer Malone yard. I started riding work and earning some money again. One day I was offered a deal to go to Bloemfontein. I had to ride a horse called Keepsake in one of the big races and if he won, they promised to pay me R5,000. I said fine and he romped home! After that, I was invited back every year for that meeting. I’d get my pick of the rides and rode winners there like crazy!”
“When I came out of my time as an apprentice, I had money in the bank, my own car, etc. I was living the good life. Boxer had string of about 10-12 horses. Unfortunately he also had a drinking problem, so I’d end up working the horses. No-one really took any notice of me and I’d work all the horses before he even got there some days. Things started going well and a local owner, Dr Huisamen, noticed me. He’d heard a rumour that I’d been given the finger in Cape Town and decided he wanted me to ride his horses. I rode horses like Outswinger, Spinning Jenny and Gay Rio – I was having lots of success for the Smith and Greeff yards. I was earning a pretty good living, but the weight was starting to get me.”
“I remember needing to waste for a single ride one day. I’d done everything I could and just wasn’t able to lose what I needed to. I saw an advert for people to donate blood and thought that might help. I went in the morning of the race. I’d not eaten for a week and been popping Obex tablets – it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary – everyone did it and I didn’t really think anything of it. They hooked me up to the bag and gave me a ball to hold. I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I started pumping the ball. The next thing I knew, I could hardly see or hear properly, the room was spinning and all these people came running towards me. I was disorientated and so I took a swing and I think I connected a nurse before I blacked out. When I came to, I was soaking wet in a cold sweat and the hospital refused to let me leave until I’d had something to eat. I couldn’t have anything if I wanted to make the day’s weight, but of course I couldn’t tell them that, so I eventually had half a glass of orange juice and they let me go. When I got home, I went straight to the scale and had lost 1.5 kgs! I got to the course, won on my ride and then went straight to a restaurant to celebrate!”
“A week later, I had an urgent call from the hospital saying they needed more blood, so I went back again. As they were about to put in the needle, they asked whether I was taking any drugs and I mentioned the Obex and explained that it was for professional purposes. Well, they just about chased me out of there! I was shocked! A little while later, I got a call from Dr Huisamen – he’d been supplying my Obex – and he said he couldn’t help me anymore. I think I may have got him into trouble.”
“The weights meant I was restricted to the rides I could take. I was used to a certain standard of living by then, so I started doing farrier work to supplement my income. Back in those days you needed to have a license to be a farrier and eventually the Jockey Club said I could not hold two licenses and that I needed to choose whether I wanted to be a jockey or a farrier. I explained that I just couldn’t lose any more weight and I couldn’t stand not eating anymore. Some of the owners offered to pay for health spas – I was even offered an injection every day so that I wouldn’t have to eat and I realised things were really getting crazy. I handed in my license and started doing farrier work full time.”
Reality check
“In 1980 I came back to Cape Town. I’d given up everything and was pretty broke. It hit me that most of my mates were dead – if they hadn’t committed suicide, then they’d died of cancer from all the meds.” He speaks matter of factly and without judgment or condemnation. “It was a huge change after all that fame and it was really stressful. You suddenly realise you’re nothing. You’ve got no friends, because you’ve got nothing to give your friends. I used to live on information. In Cape Town people would see me in the supermarket queue and at the till I’d be told ‘Your money is no good here.’ The boss would ring the till and say I didn’t have to pay, all I had to do was fill in the race card. And then I was told I didn’t have enough in my trolley and to go and fetch more. I’d be doing this twice a week and getting a trolley of groceries for me and one for my mother. At the petrol station, I’d get petrol free in exchange for marking the card – I’d end up paying the attendant the R50 or R100. I paid for nothing and basically lived for free. Crazy things used to happen. Like one morning we were driving to work. We were driving too fast because we were running late, and got pulled over. The cop started taking my details to write out the ticket, but when I gave him my name and occupation, suddenly I was addressed as Mr Truter and we were waved straight through. We were friends with the Captain of the police station at the time and the traffic cop said the boss said we could drive as fast as we liked!”
“Suddenly all that stopped and it was difficult to deal with. To lose all that fame and glory is enough to make anyone want to kill themselves. But eventually you pick up the pieces and you carry on, he says thoughtfully.
Comeback
Mark attempted to make a comeback in 1995. “My ‘old friend’ was now a senior member of the Jockey Club. Initially they put me on 6 weeks probation, which they extended to 6 months. I rode for Bobby Schutt and Chris Snaith and fulfilled all the criteria, but at the end of it, they rejected my application, saying I was living in the past and was an insurance risk. Eddie Luff got me a job at the pens, but after a few weeks I was kicked out. They just didn’t want me in town.”
Disappointed and disillusioned, Mark and his family moved to Plett where he has been living for the past 20 years. However, they have recently moved back to Cape Town and Mark has made the rather unorthodox decision to reapply for his riding license.
“The people I clashed with before are no longer around and I still want to work with horses. When I click with a horse, I just seem to get something extra out of them. Someone called it a talent, but I just feel comfortable with horses and they are comfortable with me. I’ve worked around horses all my life and this sense is getting stronger as I get older. Horses are turning around faster and it’s happening quicker and more often. I just want a chance to do what I love.”
Mark is riding work every day
The great Lester Piggott made his comeback at 54 and Mark is 59, so the NHA’s licensing board are understandably circumspect. But Mark is equally determined. He is riding work every morning, putting horses through the pens and going to grass gallops. He’s been passed fit by the course doctor, is maintaining his weight comfortably and has even secured a sponsor to cover his medical liability as insurance companies are also a little gun shy. He has garnered support from the training ranks and is now petitioning his fellow riders for permission to join them in the jockey room.
While having him back would certainly be something of a curiosity, as they say, anything can happen in racing!
