Days of horses and parties, Garrett and Millard

This shameful episode might have come from any Met of recent years, with the Cape’s biggest horse race almost better known for partying than galloping.

But this sad tale comes from a newspaper account of the very first race meeting held in Cape Town – in 1797, on Green Point Common. The swimmer was a Mr Maxwell, secretary to the Cape’s British governor of the time, Lord Macartney. The London Morning Chronicle’s story noted: “In view of the special circumstance, Mr Maxwell was accorded a vice-regal pardon.”

Little has changed in more than 200 years, apart from the vice-regal pardon. Drunken behaviour among VIPs is now likely to get a less-than-regal belch of approval.

Other modern parallels with 1797 can be found in the Chronicle report, which said the meeting was “the high point of the social season … attended by all the fashion of Africa”. We learn that Major Vanderleur “sported a fashionable gig” and Mr Ross, the paymaster, arrived with “the fair Lady Dashwood” in an “elegant curricle drawn by two milk-white steeds, emblematic of innocence”.

The main race that day wasn’t the Met. The first Metropolitan Handicap was run in 1883 when racing was moved from Green Point Common to Kenilworth, which enjoyed the great advantage of not having nearby grazing cattle and stray dogs trying to join the speeding horses.

The first Met winner was Sir Hercules, but the name most associated with this fabled event is Syd Garrett – jockey, trainer, owner and legend among legends of the South African turf.

Garrett trained 11 Met winners, from Grand Chase in 1926 to Marion Island in 1957.

The trainers saddling up for this Saturday’s Sun Met have a long way to go before they can match that, but the leading protagonists won’t be lacking ambition or confidence.

Justin Snaith and Adam Marcus are two young men on a mission, one having broken through into the top rank with smarts and self-belief and the letter having just burst into the limelight with a handful of good horses.

Somewhat older is the modern maestro himself, Mike de Kock, sending out the dazzling enigma that is Hawwaam, while Eric Sands, another old-timer, strives to defend the Sun Met title with the indefatigable Rainbow Bridge.

The only trainer who has come close to Garrett’s Met record is Terrance Millard with six wins. The canny Millard, right up there with the best we’ve seen on the South African turf, died late last year.

One imagines him and old Syd sitting together some place catching up and commenting critically on the young guns striving to win their great race.

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