Brian Cherry
Racing and training legend Brian Cherry passed away on Sunday, 27 September 2015 after suffering a recent stroke.
Brian Cherry with Chimboraa
One of the great characters of the game, Cherry was a jockey from 1939-1955 and was granted his trainer’s license in 1955. His racing colours were black with a red band and gold cap. He is probably best remembered for his association with Rothmans July winner, Chimboraa who won in 1968 under David Payne, but he handled many great horses during his career including champion sprinter Ted’s Ambition, who was virtually unbeatable at Greyville, Row To Rio, who won the Gr1 National Sprint at Gosforth Park and the Gr1 Gilbeys Sprint (Tsogo Sun Sprint); All Heart, who was one of his favourites and won the Gr1 Kronenbrau 1308 Stakes at Turffontein; Be Noble, a New Zealand-bred winner of the Gr1 Administrator’s Champion Juvenile Stakes and the Gr1 SA Derby; Kentford, who gave Felix Coetzee, as an apprentice, his first Gr1 winner in the 1976 Clairwood Winter Handicap; the twice Gr1 Natal Fillies Sprint winner Mildenhall; Australian-bred Gr1 Garden Province Stakes winner Just McKenna; the New Zealand-bred Zamit, who won the Gr2 John Skeaping Trophy and went close in all of the Gr2 Dingaans, Gr1 Administrators Classic, Gr1 SA Derby and Gr1 Holiday Inns; the fourteen-time winner Trocadero, who later sired the Champion Three-Year-Old Port Pegasus and the Gr1-winning Craftsman as well as the likes of the useful Cherry-trained Astronaut.
His owners included Mary Liley, Lou Burnstein, Roy and Gladys Meaker, Aubrey Wicks, Costa Livanos and Ted Hook.
Originally based at the old Newmarket stables, Cherry relocated to Summerveld in the 1966/67 season and Kit Kensley was his assistant for many years. Kit recollects, “I think he was an apprentice jockey at the time of Bertie Sage, Bert Abercrombie and Johnny McCreedy in Johannesburg. All the apprentices were in two yards at Newmarket next door to one another. They were all big buddies as kids.”
1968 Gr1 Rothmans Durban July Handicap winners
“He was a very successful trainer. His main jock in KZN was Muis Roberts and we had our best time when Muis was riding for the yard. He won the 1968 July with Chimboraa and David Payne for owner Lou Burnstein and in fact, he won most of the big races in KZN in his time. Zamit was a New Zealand-bred horse that won the John Skeaping. It was always one of his big aims to get that trophy and every year he had a horse trying. Zamit was the horse that won it for him and John and Mary Liley. One of his greatest feats I thought was for Costa Livanos. He took 5 horses for Livanos and one from another owner and raided with those 6 horses to Joburg. He won 6 races on one day. The first race of the day was won with a New Zealand filly first time out. The other 5 winners on the day were all ridden by Muis.”
“He was a very good horseman and one of those people who could see things without looking. He’d walk down the row and say ‘See that chap there, he’s not happy. Look at his face, something’s wrong’. And sure enough, when we went to check there would be a tendon or a temperature or a mild colic. He was amazing. I’d have to go and look and start from the front to the back and vice versa and he could walk past and just with a glance could tell if something wasn’t right. He could also pick horses very well. Be Noble was probably one of his best. He was a New-Zealand bred horse that did a tendon just before the July.”
Particular
Piere Strydom – one of the chosen few
“He was very particular about his horses and when I was working for him, the only jockeys that rode work for him was Muis Roberts and Robbie Sham. He didn’t like apprentices to ride work. When the kids used to come he’d say ‘thanks son, I’ve finished’ even though he still had 10 or 12 horses to go. He wouldn’t put appies on. The only appies I ever saw ride work for him were Piere Strydom and there was one other. When I asked why he put those appies on, he said ‘they can ride!’ Piere was one of the few that was allowed to ride his horses.”
“He was a gambling man – he loved playing cards, having a bet and backing horses. He also had a lot of owners who liked to punt. Mr Lionel Wicks was a big businessman from Transkei. He bred a few horses and had a good horse called Row To Rio who won all the sprints. They won lots of money between them. I’m sure they must have lost a bit as well over the years, but they loved to punt.”
Ted’s Ambition holds off Extra Cover for his 3rd consecutive Concord Stakes
“He also had the champion Natal sprinter, Ted’s Ambition. I think he ran probably 20 times max and raced until he was 6 or 7. He probably won 12 races, most of them A Division sprints like the Stewards Cup. He was a fantastic sprinter and bred in the back yard of the local butcher in Hillcrest, Ted Hook. They were big mates. Ted’s Ambition was the champion sprinter of Natal for many years.”
Retirement
“Brian retired in the late 80’s. I think he’d had enough really. Owners were starting to aggravate him. There were new owners coming into the game and he didn’t like the way racing was going and said ‘maybe it’s a good time for me to stop.’ He was not a young man anymore and said he wanted to try his hand at bookmaking. He took out a license, but wasn’t really successful. He had terrible legs and bad knees and struggled to walk. At the end he could hardly walk at all.”
“After he retired he stayed home and repaired antique furniture. He also collected Toby jugs and had a huge collection. When they moved from their big double storey family home in Kloof, he had to have a sale because their new place wasn’t big enough to hold them all. The children all chose the bits they wanted and they sold the rest – I think they raised over R500k! He collected cleverly and it wasn’t the run of the mill stuff. He was always very astute in what he did.”
“He had a lovely family and lots of kids. When my wife and I got married, they hired a restaurant and did the reception for us. It was their wedding gift to us. Their son Dudley is godfather to our eldest son. They were wonderful people.”
Muis Roberts
Muis Roberts aboard 1983/84 Champion Sprinter, Ted’s Ambition
Muis Roberts, who rode for the Cherry yard for many years, shared some of his memories. “The first July winner I saw as a kid was Chimboraa, owned by the Bernsteins. I’d only arrived at the Academy about two weeks earlier, so I didn’t know Mr Cherry yet. I just saw this horse winning on the outside.”
“I started working for him after I left Fred Rickaby. He was a great trainer and a nice man to work for and he had some nice clients as well. We formed a great association in the latter years before I went to the UK. There was so much trust between us and we had a lot of success together. He was never a big trainer and never had more than 40 horses at a time, but he was very selective in the string of horses he had. I rode some very good horses for him.”
“He was probably the shrewdest trainer I’ve ever been associated with in South Africa. He was fantastic with sprinters, but wonderful with just about any horse and he really knew his horses. He was such a natural horseman it was unbelievable. He could just look at a horse’s face and tell you how well it was. I rode a horse called Ulterior Motive for him one day – I’ll never forget it. He took my goggles off my helmet and said ‘You won’t be needing these in this race.” Ulterior Motive came home by himself.”
“He retired more or less around the time I went to the UK. He just said ‘that’s it’. He used to do a bit of helping people out in his spare time and his passion was antique furniture. He used to do quite a bit of furniture repair after he retired. He repaired a few things for us and funnily enough, Mr Jonsson mentioned that he did quite a bit of work for his wife too.”
“He was a small man and he liked to wear hats. He was very sharp and always full of jokes and laughs. He was a great person always willing to help people and he was very good to us. Once you’d met Mr Cherry, you wouldn’t have forgotten him.”
Or, as his granddaughter Bonita Cherry put it so well, “He was a legend of a human being.”
Brian is survived by his wife June, six children, 17 granddchildren and four great-grandchildren.
