De Kock achieves racing milestone
HORSERACING has a habit of stamping milestone moments.
The latest occurrence was on Saturday at Turffontein when Mike de Kock registered his 3 000th winner in the Gr 2 Betting World Gauteng Guineas.
The colt Janoobi also secured a feature treble for the De Kock yard on the day. Fate could not have ordained a more fitting jockey to have been aboard Janoobi than Piere Strydom.
If there was ever a vote for greatest South African trainer De Kock would probably win it, while Strydom is the only South African to have ever ridden 5000 winners and is peerless in this country about his natural talent.
Champion trainer
The reason eight-times SA Champion Trainer De Kock would likely win the vote is due to his overseas exploits. He has single-handedly put South African racing on the map.
The final fitting stamp on the 3 000th winner was the famous blue with white epaulettes colours Janoobi carried.
These colours of Sheik Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum have been carried to victory twice in the world’s most famous flat race, the Epsom Derby, and are synonymous with British racing. Twenty years ago nobody would dreamed of them being a regular fixture in South Africa.
De Kock inherited a string of 50 horses in 1988 at the age of 23 when his then boss Ricky Howard-Ginsberg passed away unexpectedly.
The owners had unanimous faith in the young De Kock taking over the string due to the natural affinity he had shown for horses. In his time in the army’s equestrian unit he had learnt how to get horses to peak fitness for both combat and endurance races.
In his subsequent stint with Ormond Ferraris he had learnt the importance of attention to detail. These two aspects of training have been the cornerstones of his success today.
His first winner was with Evening Mist in a Listed race at Newmarket on December 21, 1988, a fitting start because it was growing up close to this racecourse which had attracted him to horses and racing.
Evening Mist gave him his first Gr 1 winner in April the following year when beating the boys in the Administrator’s Champion Stakes over 2000m at Turffontein, despite odds of 25-1.
De Kock’s career took off at the end of the last millennium through his training of Horse Chestnut, who is widely regarded as the greatest racehorse in South African history. The versatile colt was a facile winner of the Cape Guineas and followed up by winning the J&B Met by eight lengths. He then went on to land the Triple Crown. He was an easy winner of his only start in the USA. A subsequent training injury forced an early retirement, having won nine of his ten career starts. But, the great horse had given De Kock a penchant for overseas travel.
Victory Moon
De Kock had soon boldly set up a yard in Dubai. On a historic night for South African racing at the Dubai World Cup meeting in 2003, De Kock landed the UAE Derby with Victory Moon and the Gr 1 Dubai Duty Free with the filly Ipi Tombe.
De Kock went on to become the second most successful trainer in Dubai Carnival history and is still a force to be reckoned with out there today.
He also has a yard in Newmarket in England. Two years ago he became the first South African to have a runner in the Kentucky Derby.
The benefit to South African racing of De Kock’s overseas success will only be truly felt when the iniquitous export protocols imposed on South African horses by most countries around the world are relaxed. This situation remains De Kock's biggest bugbear and causes him immense frustration. He has been heard to say “the floodgates” for SA racing will be opened once it has been resolved.
De Kock said in the build up to the 3000th winner, he was not much one for milestones as a person who tended to look ahead rather than backwards.
However, he would have gained great satisfaction from his son Mathew being at the helm for the three feature victories on Saturday, courtesy of Rafeef, Nother Russia and Janoobi, as he himself was away in Dubai.
Mathew also saddled the Gr 2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas runner up Al Hawraa and looks ever more capable of filling his father’s huge boots.
De Kock’s most apt statement in exposing what made him tick came in reply to a question posed on South Africa soil on whether he was still learning about British racing.
He said, ”I am still learning over here.”