Heavelon van der Hoven moving to Joburg

Jockey Heavelon van der Hoven will attempt to boost his career by moving from Cape Town to Johannesburg this week.

“The small stables are shrinking at the Cape, and there is more racing and better opportunities for me in Johannesburg,“he said.

Van der Hoven, a natural lightweight who can ride at 52kg, said he would be operating on a freelance basis, but already has offers of work from Paul Peters and Brian Wiid.

The young jockey is languishing way down the rider’s log, with just six wins, 12 seconds and 28 thirds this season from 236 mounts for slightly more than a million rand in stakes earnings.

That translates to a meagre 2% strike rate, a dismal figure that belies his latent ability, according to Tellytrack presenter, Stan Elley.

“He is a good kid and a neat rider who is not getting the opportunities he deserves, so I believe it’s the right thing for him to move.”

Elley is an astute judge of talent, having pretty much seen it all, starting out on the family stud farm in Oudtshoorn, then training for decades and now covering racing from around the country on the specialist TV channel.

So, a boost from him should provide much needed encouragement for van der Hoven.

Regarding his attributes and preferred riding style, van der Hoven stated simply, “I am well balanced and like to conserve my horses from off the pace.”

He used exactly those methods to win the inaugural million dollar on Illuminator in 2016.

The son of Trippi was an R180,000 purchase that massively rewarded connections for their loyalty to the unheralded jockey. Van der Hoven had piloted Illuminator to victory at his first two starts and was riding all the work on Glen Puller’s very talented charge, so there was some poetic justice when the duo swept through to outrun favourite, Silver Mountain and lift the gigantic prize.

His first winner was Knock ‘Em Out in September 2012 for Philippi trainer, Riaan van Reenen. His next victory came in March the following year at Fairview on National Forest, which triggered a more productive spell in the Eastern Cape. He moved back to the Mother City in 2014, but apart from that bolt-from-the-blue stunner on Illuminator, has found it difficult to make an impact.