Just horsing around
Kenilworth’s Met gets a makeover with a glamorous event at the starting gate
● The Sun Met is set to go from popping champagne to uncorking champopo, as I discovered on Tuesday evening when I turned up for the launch of Africa’s richest race day.
You will know that this is the event that gets the yearly social scene out of the starting blocks as fashion plates turn up in all their finery on the grass of the Kenilworth racecourse in Cape Town.
Next year it will take place on Saturday February 1 under the theme African
Luxury: Visionaries.
Sun International, which took over title sponsorship years ago of what is the country’s oldest major horse-racing event, held the launch on the sixth floor of that eyecatching re-purposed silo on the edge of the V&A Waterfront that houses the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.
Arriving at the venue, we were handed G&T cocktails instead of a flute of French bubbles from Maison Mumm, which partnered with the hotel group when it took over the event.
Sparkles instead came in the form of cutesy Holly Ray, the house crooner, who surprised us all by clinching the public-voted record of the year at the South African Music Awards in June.
Holly, wearing a glittering frock from Durbanbased designer Saleem, tells me she is still coming to grips with performing in a still maledominated music scene.
“I’m often the only female headliner [at concerts]. It’s time for change,” says the singer, whose new EP, titled You The EP, will drop on October 11.
On to saying hello to two sweet radio voices — Heart FM’s Rochelle Scheepers, best known as Suga, and Irma G, who used to be called Brown Sugar.
Then it’s on to our host for the night, Bonang Matheba, who introduces the horse-race event’s new campaign, which she stars in, and announces that her sparkling wine, House of BNG, is its new “celebration partner”.
Next up is Sun Int’s Anthony Leeming. He says a few words, though it would have been nice if the chief exec learnt to properly pronounce the name of our new Miss SA, Zozibini Tunzi, correctly — he called her “Zonzibini”.
Did Bonang intentionally throw a little shade when she announced the entertainment for the race, which will include Holly performing and Black Coffee on the decks?
Why else would the TV host call her ex, DJ Euphonik, who will also be performing on the day, by his lesser-known birth name, Themba Nkosi, not once but twice?
Purists might prefer the French original, but on tasting Bonang’s bubbles I was pleasantly surprised.