2017 Sun Met
The Queen’s Plate may be able to boast the title of South Africa’s oldest race, but the Met is one of the most distinguished and the most popular on the calendar.
While most cite the 1883 running, won by Sir Hercules, as the first running of the Met, some resources hint at earlier renditions, possibly tracing as far back as 1876. Either way, I went and did a few sums and realised that our oldest Met winning jockeys include Colin Palm (who turns 78 in March) and James Maree, who turns 70 years old this April.
Colin won two Mets – first in 1959 on Bulbul and again in 1964 on The Giant, both for H.E. ‘Cookie’ Amos. James Maree won the Met in 1967 on Ding Dong, beating into second place none other than Colin Palm on the mighty Renounce. I thought it might be fun to canvass them for their recollections of the Met of yesteryear.
Colin Palm
Colin Palm (photo: hamishNIVENPhotography)
Colin Palm was born on 31 March 1939 and was the 12th of 14 children – 6 sons and 8 daughters. His father, Bennie Palm, was a jockey and three of Colin’s older brothers followed in their father’s footsteps and became jockeys, Oscar, Earnest and Robert (Bobby) – who was associated with the mighty Riza. When it was his turn, Colin followed suit. Colin was originally apprenticed to his elder brother Ernest in Durban. “He suggested I go to Cape Town to ride for Cookie Amos who was looking for an apprentice at the time, so I went straight there and joined Cookie,” explains Colin, who says he would have been around 17 years old at the time.
Cookie Amos was at the height of his considerable powers at the time and the two formed a very successful partnership. Asked to describe Cookie, Colin says without hesitation, “He was an outstanding person and a first class gentleman.” Cookie started riding in Joburg, but made his way to Cape Town where he rode and worked for the outstanding Syd Garrett for many years. “Now HE was a genius,” reminisces Colin. When Cookie got too heavy to ride, he took out his trainer’s licence.
“An outstanding person and a first class gentleman” – Cookie Amos with Bulbul
“Cookie was a very good trainer,” continues Colin. “At the time I was lucky to get that position – he had a lot of good horses and it’s always easier to win on a good one than a bad one. He was a first class gentleman. After a race, or usually the next day, he’d sit down and we’d discuss what had happened. Having been a jockey himself, he gave a lot of insight. He was a top class horseman. He was always analysing the well being of the horse. He had a string of about 50 horses and was incredibly thorough. He could tell when a horse looked well, was working well and eating well. He had a very good eye and noticed immediately if a horse was not behaving how it should. We would take temperatures regularly. I remember one day a horse spiked a slight temperature and he sent him back to his box, saying ‘What’s the good of running a horse with a temperature?’ He was a very good man and a very good trainer.”
Bulbul
Mr & Mrs Phillip Hill lead in Colin Palm on Bulbul
In 1959, the year Colin first won the race, the Metropolitan meeting (as it was known then) was still held over three days, horses jumped from tapes and the purse for that year was £10,000. The SA Racehorse boasts, “The Metropolitan meeting opened the Cape racing season in fine style with tote and turnstiles breaking a record on Metropolitan day and a total of £216,585 through the tote for three days, considerably higher than last year.”
Cookie’s boss, Syd Garrett had trained the mighty Black Cap and Cookie trained his son, Bulbul who was out of the Epigram mare, Wagtail and owned by the Chairman of the local executive of the Jockey Club, Mr Phillip Hill. Colin remembers Bulbul as “a tall black horse, although one would call him dark brown. He used to like to run freely, and didn’t like to be settled. He always did his best when handily placed into the straight. Going into the Met we were very confident. His prep has been good and everything had gone perfectly to plan.” As things turned out, they won more or less as they liked, securing Amos his 3rd Met victory in four years.
The Giant
Colin’s second Met win came aboard The Giant in 1964. It was the first year the race was sponsored and The House of Ardath raised the stake – now paid in Rand – to R30,000 and renamed it The State Express 555 Metropolitan Handicap. Colin remembers, “Cookie had three runners that year – Stanley was on one, I can’t remember the other horse and I chose The Giant.” The Giant went to post at 25-1 in a field that included the likes of Jerez, Java Head, Polar Bear and Kerason. “He was a bit of an outsider, which was unusual. He was a good horse, but had never won a race like the Met.” In the parade ring Cookie asked what he planned to do and Colin said he thought it would be a fast run race and that he’d try and stay in the bunch and then use his discretion. “He told me ‘don’t forget, get out smartly’. It wasn’t that easy with the tape starts, but he jumped well, which was important for him and the race worked out the way I expected. As we turned into the straight, he found a nice opening and went on to win a good race. Some you sweat, but he won easily and I went past the post patting him.” Cookie Amos was both the owner and the trainer and The Giant’s win was his 5th Met victory.
James Maree
James Maree
James Maree, who was born on 7 April 1947, won the race on the Jackie Bell-trained outsider Ding Dong in 1967. “We weren’t one of the fancied horses,” he remembers, but this is perhaps understandable given that the rest of the field included Cookie Amos’ great filly Renounce (ridden by Colin Palm) and horses such as Sea Cottage, Savonarola, Java Head and Fire Eyes. The SA Racehorse notes, “The handicap was pitched on a higher scale than usual, which put paid to the chances to such good horses as Java Head (135lb) and let in horses on the minimum mark who cluttered up the field and even with their light weights managed to finish in three of the last four places.”
Ding Dong
James Maree and Ding Dong crossing the line
James Maree was Joburg based, but secured a Met ride thanks to an earlier stint in Cape Town. He remembers, “I’d been asked to come down to ride for trainer Eben du Toit for a few of months and I picked up a couple of contacts. Ding Dong was trained by Jackie Bell and Hennie Retief was the owner. They asked if I’d come down and ride him and of course I did. Jackie Bell was quite an old man when I rode for him in the Met, I’d say he was probably in his 60’s by then. I got to work Ding Dong at home, but the Met was the first time I rode him in a race.”
While Mr Maree can’t remember whether they had gates or had a tape start (“you’re talking more than 50 years ago now!” he reminds me), he does remember that the race worked out well. They came from off the pace, hit the front late and won easily. “It was fantastic to win the Met. Not everyone gets the opportunity.”
Different era
Ding Dong wins the 1967 Metropolitan Handicap
Asked whether the sponsors did anything to make a fuss of the day, he reminds me that jockeys weren’t allowed to mix with the public very much back then. “We had to stay in the jockey room. It was all a lot stricter in those days.”
The SA Racehorse reports, “Once in the straight, Renounce and Savonarola bounced past Peace Chief. After a brief tussle the filly drew away but started to hang badly to the outside, allowing Ding Dong to be driven through on the fence to win by ¾ length from Renounce with Refinery the same distance third.” For those wondering, Sea Cottage ran into traffic problems, causing him to drop right to the back of the field, but he mounted his usual challenge and flew at the leaders down the straight to finish 4th.
Ding Dong carried 49.5kgs. Cookie Amos’ filly, 1966 Met winner Renounce, carried 54.5kgs and had Colin Palm on her back. Colin says, “Just a few strides before the line, she changed strides, shortened and broke down, but she tried so hard. She was a phenomenal filly and gave you everything. She had a beautiful head and was really well made and she had a temperament to go with it. When she was racing, she was cool, calm and so easy to ride. I don’t think King’s Pact would have beaten her, but it would have been a very good race! I rode a lot of good horses, but there was never another like her.”
