Jumping Jockeys

I repeat ad nauseam how lucky I am to have grown up with horses. But the emphasis is very much on HORSES.  There’s an old riding expression that a pony is a childhood dream and a horse an adulthood treasure.

For various reasons I didn’t get much opportunity to own ponies, so as my parents had horses, that’s more or less what I rode. Or didn’t, unless I could persuade a kindly creature to stand by the fence long enough for me to shimmy up and get on its back. Needless to say, things didn’t always end happily and I remain eternally grateful that our property had soft, sandy soil.

By the time I progressed to going to shows, I was already well into my Junior career. If you weren’t otherwise occupied with warming up, warming down, holding or otherwise tending to your horse, sitting on the Cape Hunt & Polo Club steps or the bank at SDRC or Glenellen offered a great vantage point for watching the other classes. While the higher grade, adult classes were usually the ones that attracted the most attention, it was the children bombing around on their ponies that generally guaranteed the most entertainment. Those of us with our demure tack and delicate horses looked on in envy as children with manic grins and ponies dressed in all colours of the rainbow, dropped strides, took impossible angles and asked for stand offs that would make your eyes water, but their ponies turned themselves inside out to get over anyway.

I don’t get to shows much these days other than as an emergency driver or to support friends, so was hugely thrilled to have an excuse to pop round to Trinity Equestria over the weekend under the guise of work to watch our local jockeys, farriers and Mike Robinson take part in a fun show-jumping class to raise funds for the Cart Horse Protection Association (CHPA).

Trinity Equestria Charity Fund-Raiser

Yard manager Anya Groenewald was holding a show and decided to use it as a fundraiser for the CHPA. Wonderful riders and horses entered from all across the Western Cape and Luella Robinson and daughter Caitlin, who both stable at Trinity, offered to help by getting the racing fraternity on board for a fun show-jumping class.

Lu managed to twist the arms of 2014 July winning jockey, Richard Fourie, 2013 J&B Met winner Aldo Domeyer, multiple Gr1 winner Grant van Niekerk, Cape stalwart Anthony Andrews and young Brandon May to go head to head with top Cape farriers, Robbie Miller and Glenn Zimmerman, as well as Mike Robinson representing the trainers. There was plenty of support on the ground with MJ Byleveld, Terry and Annabel Andrews, Mike and Jacquie Solomon, Troy Finch as official ‘tog’ for the day and Warren Randall stole the show with his MC skills, composing a cleverly customised intro for each rider.

Still got it!  Mike Robinson (photo: hamishNIVENPhotography)

Apart from Anthony Andrews (who rode in the Derek Muller silks), who had brought his girlfriend’s gorgeous Warmblood Broadway, each jockey had had a steed assigned to them and there was huge fun and good-natured banter over who would get to ride which pony, with plenty of competition for Caitlin’s pony, Harmonie Vabond aka VB. In the end, VB did dual service, carrying both Richard Fourie (in the famous Marsh Shirtliff pink, white and blue silks) and Glenn Zimmerman (in Ed and Marlane Belstead’s colours) around in style. Grant van Niekerk was assigned a crackerjack grey Mounted Games pony named Azure carrying the Brian Finch black and red, Robbie Miller, in the colours of Bevan Steele, was paired up with a lovely palomino by the name of ‘Strings’ (No Strings Attached), Brandon May (in Juan van Heerden’s colours) and Mike Robinson (in Luella’s blue and white silks) shared the lovely white-faced Jock and with Aldo Domeyer a late scratching, I was an emergency acceptor in the Team Valor green and red and got lucky enough to be paired up with Violet, a ‘proudly SA’ Vlaam mare, belonging to Emily Turner (also the best 2IC in town).

Stars – on and off the track

It was a blast – Richard Fourie (photo: hamishNIVENPhotography)

While galloping Thoroughbreds down the Kenilworth straight is pretty impressive, it was touching to see our pros handle their assigned horses and ponies with the utmost care and delicacy. One of the bystanders remarked that he’d been ‘blown away’ watching the jockeys in the warm-up tentatively testing the various gears and fretting that they didn’t want to mess up anyone’s pony – guys, you earned us some solid gold brownie points for that!

Also everyone deserves enormous praise for style. There is always a little inter-discipline rivalry, but I can proudly say that despite most of them not knowing the difference between a red or white flag, our jockeys were deadly over the show jumping track and gave their mounts phenomenally good rides. There were a few stops, a few poles down, the odd squiggle and air above the ground, but the judges decided to be forgiving and send everyone through to the jump off. There was no quarter given with everyone going flat out, but in the end, Glenn Zimmerman grabbed the honours in a lightning fast 42 seconds on the very game VB, with Richard Fourie (also on VB) in second place. Caitlin Robinson has clearly inherited her parents’ training chops! Anthony Andrews and Broadway were third and Mike Robinson on Jock in fourth, but everyone had fun and deserves a fantastic pat on the back for being so game.

Huge thanks to Trinity Equestria and all the organisers for a really fun day out, well done to Lu for organising a racing ‘leg’ and to all the racing folk who supported, particularly Brandon May who was so amped that he turned up hours in advance to study the competition. Thanks to all the non-racing crowd for allowing us to crash your show and for being so welcoming and supportive. The jockeys (farriers, trainers and journo !) had a ridiculous amount of fun. I’ve also been asked to make particular mention of Richard Fourie who made Caitlin Robinson’s day by sending a personal note of thanks for the loan of VB. It’s not every day a girl gets a note from a July winning jockey!

Best of all, by the end of the day, R10,600 had been raised for the Cart Horse Protection Association.

Me, Violet and Emily, the best 2IC in town! (photo: Jomane Turner)

To all the rider sponsors, as well as everyone who contributed to the prizes as well as the raffle, which included everything from a day at the races including a 2 course lunch from Kenilworth Racing, to photo shoots, physio treatments (for your horse, of course), equine dental treatments from Gary Waters, farrier services from Glenn Zimmerman, meal vouchers, olive oil, a jump filler and more. It was such a runaway success that I believe Luella would like to revive the tradition and is on the hunt for a floating trophy – any enquiries to Luella Robinson please.

Lastly, my heartfelt thanks to the amazing Emily for being so generous in sharing her wonderful Violet with me and making my childhood dream come true.