A happy moment 33 years in the making
A still overwhelmed champion jockey and old-fashioned Springbok hero Piere Strydom bid Cape Town goodbye on Sunday just 24 hours after reaching for what most mortals would be an unassailable pinnacle in any profession.
Many of us are feeling marginalised by horseracing’s fall from grace over the years: from all the negativity spewed from so many quarters: and generally from a bitter twisted sad feeling that we will never recapture the halcyon days when we fell in love with the greatest game on earth.
Somehow Striker rekindled something and gave us a faint ray of light and hope on Saturday.
Naas Botha said ‘cowboys don’t cry.’ Somebody should have told him, neither do punters. Nobody sheds tears in totes. We don’t even cry when we get bundled out of the Pick 6.
But on Saturday, Striker injected some emotion into it all.
They were on reflection simply tears of joy for a seriously decent humble guy we can identify with.
And we haven’t always loved him everyday.
On Saturday, nothing was forced. We loved it. It was something real. Something beyond all the razzmataz bulldust of social media and fake marketing campaigns that enrich all the wrong and don’t add an ounce of value to anybody who has dedicated a lifetime, shouted a horse home and spent part of the rent money on a certainty.
You have no doubt been on the moon or further if you haven’t heard that Strydom rode his 5000th winner when the smashing Dynasty colt Act Of War stormed to victory in the Gr2 Selangor Cup at a sunny Kenilworth.
The defining moment as Act Of War strolls in
In the end, while completely unplanned, things worked out like a well-oiled PR exercise with the win coming on a champion 3yo colt in the making for South Africa’s leading owner.
Those Bok silks again.
And there was even a beautiful garland to throw around the champion’s neck as he returned to rapturous applause from the bumper Lanzerac inspired crowd.
Somebody got the marketing and the timing right.
Saturday also happened despite the fact that many of Striker’s Gauteng fans had actually pushed the legend to hold off and do the 5000 thing on Louis The King in Saturday’s Summer Cup at Turffontein.
Not greedy. Not selfish. Nah. Just plain bloody convenient for the Jozi Jockey marketing team.
“That would have been a long wait and without income too,” chirped the always humble Striker to the eloquent Andrew Bon at Cape Town International Airport.
Andrew Bon – ran out of superlatives
Even Mr Bon for once in his life ran out of adjectives and superlatives. Who can blame him?
“It was the most special day. It wasn’t a one-off event. The best thing of all there have been so many people involved – And to know it has meant a lot to me but it has also meant so much to so many other people – it was the culmination of 33 years of riding and reaching a goal,” said Striker.
Strydom said he had won ‘July’s and Mets’ and won overseas on champion JJ The Jet Plane – “but I have never had the response I have had now,” he said with a tired smile as he attempted to just ‘try and catch a plane.’
Striker then got serious and said:
“Some of us were chatting. Do you know if a guy rode 200 winners per season for 20 years solid, he’d still be 1000 winners short. That just puts into perspective that I have been really and truly blessed to have ridden on top for so long through things like injuries and suspensions and everything else that jockeys have to face”
He confirmed he would still chase his next goal of 5072 winners to neatly wrap up his 5000 on SA soil total.
“But for now I cannot ask for more. I am proud to have been the first to this mark. And who knows somebody else could get there in time.”
Piere’s mentor, his Dad Hekkie Strydom, was beaming with pride and said he had missed the race but had celebrated the occasion with his son later in the day.
“He was so clever at school – always first in class. He was up in Jo’burg and I asked my brother-in-law to take him direct to the academy.The teacher still asked us how such a clever boy could turn up school and become a jockey. But look at him today,” he said.
South African horseracing should be beaming with pride.
This was the real thing.
Now the poor oke has to turn up at the Vaal today. On sand…
So much for the glamour and the rush.
