Khumalo reaches the 200-winner mark

National Champion jockey elect S’Manga Khumalo reached the 200-winner mark in a season for the first time in his career when winning the World Sports Betting (WSB)  Poly Challenge 1600 aboard the Justin Snaith-trained Jet Explorer at Fairview last Friday.

Khumalo has established himself as National Champion trainer Sean Tarry’s chief jockey this season.Tarry believes it is simply an increase in confidence which has enabled Khumalo to take it to a new level.

He emphasised how important it was to his team effort to have Khumalo riding confidently. He added, “It was great to see him get the double century. Every bit helps his confidence and confidence enables him to ride to his best.”

Khumalo’s Vodacom Durban July victory on the Tarry-trained Heavy Metal in 2013 elevated his self belief on to the same plain as his ability, which has always been there in abundance. He duly won the national jockeys championship the following season. He was unable to retain his title last season, but did help Tarry win his first National Trainer’s title.

Khumalo has proved himself to be as hungry as ever this season and his professionalism is proven in that he is in regular contact with his new “mentor”, ex-jockey great Felix Coetzee.

Coetzee has always been the ultimate professional and, as one whose success came as much through hard work as natural talent, he was always destined to be a good “coach”.
Tarry is dominating this year’s championship and looking at the strength of his two-year-old crop he looks set to become as entrenched in the number one spot as Mike de Kock once was.

Therefore, Khumalo will be difficult to dethrone if he remains in favour with Tarry.

Therein lies the Importance of Coetzee’s role, a background figure who knows all about the pressure of being at the top and who can nip any niggling loss of confidence in the bud.

Coetzee’s role could be compared to a swing analyst’s role in the routine of a professional golfer.

On Friday Khumalo proved how good his judgement of pace has become. He was in third place in the running, but swung his mount out and went for home early, having recognised the moderate pace of the race. It was a party spoiling win as Port Elizabethans had been hoping to embrace a “triple crown” winner of their own.

The five-year-old Jacque Strydom-trained Go Deputy gelding Gogetthesheriff needed to win the race to land a R250,000 bonus from WSB for his owner Freddie Van Onselen, as he had been victorious in the first two legs of the Challenge over 1200m and 1400m respectively.

Unfortunately, he was strong in the early running behind the slow pace.

He still managed to run on bravely under JP van der Merwe to finish a half-a-length third.

Van Onselen did land a R50,000 consolation bonus, but was clearly devastated by the loss. However, he gathered himself to take the mic and thank all the fans of “The Sheriff” who had come to the course to support him.

“He was beaten by the better horse but it won’t be the end of the Sheriff,” he concluded.

Khumalo is unbeaten in two rides aboard Jet Explorer. First time up in February he had extracted the courageous seven-year-old Jet Master gelding’s first win since his shocking fall in the Gr 1 Rising Gold Challenge two years ago which left him requiring life-saving surgery to repair a shattered jaw.

Khumalo is 26 clear (at the time of writing) of second-placed Anthony Delpech on the national log and can probably afford the seven day suspension he is currently serving.