When Anneline rode Furious – and the crowd went crazy

But no one mentioned the extraordinary moment the flamboyant hotel magnate put his beauty queen wife on the back of South Africa’s champion racehorse – in a crowded banqueting hall with hundreds of revellers swilling champagne and cheering the spectacle to the chandeliers.

The wife was, of course, former Miss World Anneline Kriel and the occasion was Sun City’s sumptuous launch party in 1979.

The horse with the pleasure of Annie’s comely bum nestling on his bare back was Furious. He showed no sign of living up to his name and she, too, remained wonderfully calm as they clip-clopped through the rowdy throng.

Furious was “Mr South Africa” of the tracks – a strapping fellow of 16-plus hands. The “People’s Horse” of his day, he had fans at racecourses reaching through railings to touch him, even trying to pluck hairs from his tail as mementos.

Kerzner’s creative mind alighted on this popular nag when the gelding won the 1978 Holiday Inns (formerly the Summer Handicap, now the Summer Cup and Joburg’s biggest race) – despite the race being sponsored by a rival hotel chain.

Everyone who was anyone was invited to the opening of Sol’s pleasure palace in the Pilanesberg, including thoroughbred royalty. Furious was transported in luxury hundreds of kilometres from his home in Hilton, where his trainer Anne Upton had her stables, to Sun City and an assignation with a beauty queen.

The grand entrance of the bareback rider at the bash was conceived with a “Lady Godiva” feel to it, though a key element of that imagery was missing and Anneline remained clothed – despite some inebriated journalists suggesting loudly that she get ’em out.

The striking thing about this slapstick was the calmness and dignity with which Furious conducted himself. Led by his groom through the excited throng, blonde bombshell aboard, he was the epitome of cool.

This was a horse still in race training, full of explosive energy, and would have been excused getting a tad edgy. But Furious always had superb temperament and never let things faze him.

His grace under fire at Sun City so impressed Sandy Christie, boss of Turffontein racecourse, that he snapped up Furious as a “lead” horse when his racing days were over. For many years thereafter, Furious led pre-race parades of runners at Joburg’s city track – bearing rear-ends never as agreeable as the one at Sun City.

Today he is honoured by the Furious Room, one of Turffontein’s posher grandstand venues, and is buried with other Turffontein legends beside the infield lake.

Upton was one of the very few female trainers of her day and never stabled more than 20 horses at a time. She built an big reputation for “fixing” temperamental horses or nurturing others fallen from favour.

Bull Brand beef products millionaire Cyril Hurvitz, a prolific thoroughbred owner, bought Furious on the National Yearling Sale. But the son of Savonarola contracted biliary and, when he came to race, performed dismally.

Hurvitz wanted rid of the expensive flop when his then trainer Fred Rickaby, suggested Upton might have the patience and resources to turn Furious around.

“When he arrived, he was a little light as a result of his illness, but he was very scopy,” recalled Upton years later. “I thought cross-country work in the plantations around our farm would build him up, and it did.”

Furious’s first start for the new yard was at Scottsville in January 1978, over a mile. “In those days there was the dip in the back straight at Scottsville, where horses disappeared from view. With Furious still inexperienced, I didn’t want him tangling with other horses, so I told jockey Harold Taylor to hang back in the dip,” says Anne. “So, he came into the straight stone last. But he won by a distance. It was phenomenal.”

He won again in February at Greyville and Hurwitz declared he wanted to win the Holiday Inns at Turffontein at the end of the year with Furious.

Furious kept winning and clinched a spot in the big race when he travelled to Joburg to claim the Gold Bowl.

On 9 December 1978, less than 11 months after his first success, ridden by Robbie Sham, Furious won the Grade 1 Holiday Inns in style.

Unbeknown to the trainer, from the moment he instructed Anne to aim at the big race, Hurvitz started backing his horse heavily. It was one of the biggest betting coups ever.

In all, Furious won 14 races, including the Gold Cup under top weight and the Transvaal Champion Stakes, and ran 18 places, including a third and a fourth in subsequent runnings of the Holiday Inns.

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