SA Hall Of Fame
THE first horseracing inductees into South Africa’s Hall Of Fame were announced yesterday and they are Michael Roberts (jockey), Syd Laird (trainer), Sea Cottage (horse) and Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer (owners).
Michael “Muis” Roberts was a shoe in as the jockey.
He held the record for the most winners as an apprentice for many years and won the first of his eleven South African Jockeys Championships while still an apprentice.
He later became only the sixth non-British or Irish jockey to win the British Jockeys Championship, which began in 1840 and is regarded as the hardest championship to win in world racing.
In doing so he became only the third jockey in history after Sir Gordon Richards and Pat Eddery to ride over 200 winners in a British flat racing season.
Syd Laird was the nephew of the great horseman Syd Garrett.
He became a great horseman himself and holds the record for the most Durban July wins, seven in all.
He trained South Africa’s first racehorse inducted into the Hall Of Fame, Sea Cottage, and expertly nursed him back from a bullet wound to the soft flesh of the hindquarters, which happened just three weeks before the 1966 July.
He also trained the like of Colorado King, Mazarin and Politician who are all mentioned when the greats of the SA turf are discussed.
His son Alec went on to become a fine trainer who also won the July.
Sea Cottage won 20 of 24 starts and was known for his devastating finish from off the pace.
He had won eleven of 12 starts when disaster struck three weeks before the 1966 Durban July.
A lone gunman shot him in the soft flesh of the hindquarter while he was walking under a bridge on to the Blue Lagoon beach where he was trained. Trainer Syd Laird still managed to have him ready for the July but he suffered bad luck in running and finished fourth.
The following year with topweight he had to produce an electrifying finish to catch the lightweight Jollify and he just managed to do so.
The result was a dead-heat.
He won the Queen’s Plate twice, the Clairwood Winter Handicap twice, the SA Derby, the SA Guineas, the Champions Stakes and also won the Grade 1 Newbury Stakes over 1200m twice, showing his versatility.
Oppenheimer
Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer owned and bred the great Horse Chestnut, who would have been the chief opposition to Sea Cottage for the first Equine Hall Of Fame inductee.
The popular couple won the July six times among many other great races.
They founded Mauritzfontein Stud and this breeding operation together with Wilgerbosdrift Stud, which are today owned and run by their daughter and granddaughter respectively Mary and Jessica Slack, continues to make an enormous impact on the thoroughbred breed in this country.
The two stud farms bring in quality stallions and broodmares from overseas and breed to high standards.
Bridget was fondly known as “The Queen Mum of South African racing” in her last years.
The couple's famous yellow and black silks, today running under the banner of Mauritzfontein Stud, are still a regular fixture in SA racing and were carried to victory by Smart Call in the 2016 J&B Met.