Kommetdieding, with Gavin Lerena in the saddle, wins the Durban July at Greyville Racecourse on Saturday. Picture: Darren Stewart/Gallo Images
Top horse racing trainer Mike de Kock wasn’t far off in his description of the drama of Saturday’s 2021 Vodacom Durban July: “This is what movies are made of.”
The winner, three-year-old colt Kommetdieding, was bought for R55 000 as a yearling – a pittance in thoroughbred terms – and trained by the small Cape Town stable of veteran Harold Crawford and his daughter Michelle Rix.
Ashwin Reynolds became the first owner of colour to win Africa’s greatest race.
Reynolds it was who renamed the horse after he bought it – a cheeky use of Cape Flats lingo – and it began winning.
It was also the first Durban July win for former champion jockey Gavin Lerena, who had to lose 4kg in two weeks to make the 53kg allotted to Kommetdieding.
Lerena got the ride after Kommetdieding’s regular jockey, Sihle Cele, gave up the ride to a more experienced rider to give the horse a better chance of winning.
And, at the award ceremony afterwards, Luvo Dinglawayo, the colt’s closest companion day-to-day, was among the celebratory gathering on the podium.
What a South African story.
What a uniquely South African race.
Just the shot in the arm the ailing racing industry needed.
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