O
N every public holiday and on some weekends besides, there is a traditional horseracing meeting somewhere in the great corridor of land sweeping down through Mthatha from the foothills of the southern Drakensberg in the direction of the sea. Depending on one’s bias, the sport is either “bush racing”, “traditional racing” or “indigenous traditional racing” and without fail, come Heritage Day or Human Rights Day, there will be a meeting at Dutywa or Mount Frere or Tsolo Junction.
The calendar culminates at Bajodini near Qumbu on Boxing Day. This meeting, traditional racing’s J&B Met, has been held without fail every year since 1919 when it was started by a warm-spirited — and commercially astute — general dealer in the region, a certain Lawrence Moore.
The story is told that one year, Moore, the owner of the Moore’s Post Trading Store, was keen to have a rare Christmas holiday for himself and his family, and campaigned for the race to be postponed. So highly anticipated was the Boxing Day event, however, that he received a delegation of 600 concerned fans and citizens, and the race was held on its usual day.