Top jockey Craig Zackey follows compatriots to New Zealand

Hot on the heels of reigning champion jockey Warren Kennedy’s relocation to New Zealand, comes news that fellow top rider Craig Zackey is also heading to the ‘Land of Hobbits’.

Blame for this denuding of South African talent can be laid at the door of Donavan Mansour, yet another local jockey who emigrated to New Zealand a few years ago.

Mansour is currently managing the upmarket Byerley Park training centre in South Auckland for founder and prominent horse owner Daniel Nakhle.

With his new home suffering a dearth of top-class jockeys, Mansour has turned to his old stamping ground for some cherry-picking.

South Africa is renowned for its jockeyship – thanks largely to the world- class SA Jockey Academy at Summerveld, outside Durban – so it isn’t exactly rocket science for foreign jurisdictions to recruit from here. Hong Kong has been doing it for decades and the likes of Basil Marcus, Felix
Coetzee and Dougie Whyte became international superstars while riding in the Chinese enclave.

And guess what? Mansour is not only nicking jockeys but is copying the Jockey Academy model at Byerley Park! According to Racing News website, the New Zealand Jockey Academy has been built, boasting “a bespoke complex” of gym, classrooms, exercise rings and state-of-the-art riding simulators.

And the first two apprentice jockeys have arrived there, Triston Moodley and Donovan Cooper – recruited fresh from Summerveld! Talk about someone eating your lunch.

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Truth is, if all these young men can build a better life for their families as Kiwis, who can begrudge them?

With politicians putting the squeeze on the local game – not to mention other multitudinous malfeasance – the future of this neck of the woods ain’t looking rosy.

Mansour was a useful jockey in both South Africa and Mauritius before journeying south. On a fateful day at Te Aroha racecourse in 2019, a mount reared at the barrier, toppled over and landed on top of him. He suffered a broken pelvis and other internal injuries and there were fears he might be permanently paralysed.

Miraculous recovery

After being airlifted to Waikato Hospital, he underwent several operations and made something of a miraculous recovery.

“Being light and agile, and able to be mobile quite early to get the body moving has helped,” he told Racing News.

“I also follow a strict vegetarian diet. Fitness, diet, and prayer have been helpful.”

After shunning racing for eight months, due to deep disappointment – if not depression – at being told he’d never race again, he landed the plum job with Nakhle’s expanding Byerley Park venture.

He’s also been trying his hand as a bloodstock advisor to the likes of Mathew de Kock in Australia, Vicky Veeramootoo in Mauritius and the Wernars brothers in South Africa.