Please Note: South African Quartet Pools with fractional betting offered at Hamilton, Kempton and Lingfield (UK) – 03 September 2025

David Thiselton

South African champion jockey Gavin Lerena is living in limbo at present as he awaits the outcome of his appeal on August 18 against the severity of the sentence in the Jason Gates whipping incident.

He was looking forward to riding this week as he had to take time off for the inquiry and then had to sit out a suspension, but he had to book off yesterday’s Vaal meeting as he is down with the flu.

He described his championship winning season as having been mentally tough, especially due to the Gates incident, and expanded, “I stayed off social media, but my family really took it to heart and it wasn’t easy for any of us.”

He described the build up to the incident, his spur of the moment reaction and the immediate aftermath.

He said, “I had three winners the previous day, including Rascova winning a Gr 1, but it was a scorching day and after eleven rides there was a late night flight, so I was feeling a bit mentally fatigued. Jason’s mount carried me out six horse-widths from the top of the straight to where the incident happened. He had switched his whip to the right hand and his horse was going straight. He then changed it back to the left hand and began whipping when there was no room to whip. He struck my filly on the chest and then struck me on my arm. I was angered especially by my filly being hit on the chest and thereafter the whip could have gone anywhere, it could have even hit me in the eye. My reaction was spur of the moment, it is fight or flight.”

However, as quickly as the pull up Gavin was already thinking, “Oh my goodness, what have I just done.”

The next day he issued a public apology for his “out of character” reaction.

He and Jason chatted about a week later and agreed upon it being a dangerous sport and they needed to have respect for one another. They agreed to move on from the incident too.

However, keyboard warriors did not allow the tightly knit Lerena family to forget about it.

Furthermore, Gavin did not know where he stood for a long time.

He added, “The inquiry was also tough as it was three days long and I had to represent myself … had I taken a lawyer I would not have been able to appeal. I had to face nine legal people on my own.”

He continued, “Other than that, I had a fantastic season. I enjoyed my racing and I enjoyed the people I rode for. I didn’t have the East Cape, so I had to be extra smart to get as many winners as I could and I was very blessed. There’s been a couple of seasons lately that I’ve wanted to go for it, but it’s got to all fall into place and I was very fortunate to get support in Cape Town last season … I’ve never had that before.”

Gavin had a fall out with one of his main guv’nors, Johan Janse van Vuuren, at the beginning of the season, but they later made up.

Gavin said, “It is quite funny when you look back at it, because it was something so stupid. But it lit the fire inside me.”

The support in Cape Town included partnering the top class Vaughan Marshall-trained One World colt One Stripe.

Gavin said winning the prestigious Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate on One Stripe had been the highlight of his season.

He said, “Winning the Guineas was great, but the King’s Plate has aways been a race I’ve wanted to win. It’s not easy with a three-year-old, but he was up to the task.”

One Stripe had a lot of ground to make up at the top of the straight, but Gavin said, “I was going really well. I knew I had so much horse under me. He sometimes hits a flat spot and you’ve got to help him through it, but when he’s ready and you’re ready he gives you an amazing kick. I never felt like I was going to lose the race to be honest.”

Gavin’s daughter had broken her arm the previous night and the family had to make a late night emergency trip to the hospital, so he arrived on course with about three hours sleep.

Gavin rates One Stripe as up with the best he has ridden, but he said keeping the ride overseas was not going to “be easy”.

Gavin showed true grit in his first championship in 2014/2015, because always in the back of his mind in a tight tussle with S’Manga Khumalo was the heart-breaking memory of three years earlier when ousted by one win by Anton Marcus on the last day of the season, despite entering that meeting one win up. However, Gavin scored a record-breaking 42 wins in June 2015 to pull clear and obliterate that bad memory forever.

This season had a different challenge, as already mentioned.

He said chasing a championship was physically taxing too, with flying being the worst of it.

Gavin said as a jockey he was always improving.

He said, “In this sport you’re always learning new things and evolving. I have always been confident in the saddle, but your race riding and use of different tactics improves. Our racing’s changed quite a lot as well, fifteen years ago, we went a good, strong gallop, but a lot of races today are canter-sprints.”

Gavin said he always had a plan A, B and C going into a race.

He revealed, “I try to work out how a race is going to pan out and the bottom line is you’ve got to have a horse where the horse is happy. It’s no use forcing a horse to be two lenghs closer than he wants to be.”

His wife Vicky is a racing TV presenter and that has helped.

He said, “She found me a lot of winners just by watching the race and saying you’ve got to get on that one next time.”

Gavin’s agent Wade Viljoen also did a fine job finding good rides through the season.

DAVID THISELTON

SANELE MCHUNU has made giant strides as Race Coast’s Zulu horseracing commentator and has already commentated two Hollywoodbets Durban Julys with the feed going live on Supersport as well as on to the normal Gallop TV stream.

It all started for him when he landed a job as a cameraman for Gold Circle back in 2015. He said, “I was so privileged when I started my job as I was working closely with the presenters Kevin Shea, Warren Lenferna, Deez Dayanand and Sheldon Peters. They were sending me to

take their bets, so I started learning about betting and about the horses and I started grasping all the information related to punting. I couldn’t always rely on them to give me tips, so I started studying form so I could take my own bets. I would say I am an average punter. I do have my good days and I do have my bad days. “My best moment was when the Candice Dawson-trained filly Sentbydestiny won the Gr 1 Premiers Champion Stakes. She was running against big horses like Tempting Fate, who was the short-priced favourite, but I liked her and picked her and she won paying R25.20 on The Tote.”

Sanele was given an opportunity to be the first Zulu commentator in the country last year and jumped at it.

He said, “I had to teach myself, there was nobody to teach me, but I studied the Zulu commentaries in other sports to find a model that would appeal to a Zulu audience.”

He continued, “I had a number of practice commentaries using my phone to record myself, so I could see if I was doing well. I sent those videos to a couple of people to critique me and

they gave me some pointers. Sheldon and Deez were two of the critics. They gave me some good feedback that I learned from because it was a new thing for me. The critique made it a little bit easier, because I was doing it for the first time and so could afford to go wrong and I was going to learn from that.”

Sanele’s first live commentary was in May last year and a couple of months later he was doing his first Hollywoodbets Durban July.

He does his commentaries from the old SABC box at Hollywoodbets Greyville, which is directly below the main commentary box used by Craig and Sheldon Peters and is next door to the judge’s box. He said, “It’s the biggest racing event in the whole continent, so obviously you have to be nervous. Doing it for the first time and knowing that for the first time you’re going to an audience that has never heard you before, like the Supersport audience,which is a big platform, it was nerve-wracking.”

However, the commentary went very well, particularly as he screamed “ORIENTAL CHARM!”

in the final stages and his last words were that Oriental Charm had beaten Cousin Casey, the

one-two in a typically frantic July finish.

“I received some good feedback after that,” he said. However, he was sweating on the result and explained, “The most challenging aspect of the race was there were two horses with the same silks and the same caps, except the one had a little white pom-pom on which you couldn’t see. They were Cousin Casey and Future Swing and I did manage to call Cousin Casey second, but after the race I jumped up to look at the results board because I was thinking what if it was actually Future Swing and I was calling Cousin Casey? I was relieved I got it right.” By the time the next Hollywoodbets Durban July had come around commentating was starting to become second nature. He is no longer a cameraman and is now dedicated to his knew role as commentator and studio presenter as preview shows for all meetings are also done in Zulu.

He said, “I give it more time now and I study more colours. I follow the horses all over the

country to make it easier when it comes to the Champion’s Season, because there are raiders from Cape Town and from Jo’Burg, so you have to follow racing in the whole country. I also know the colours from around the country now.” In the 2025 July he once again emphasised the name of the winner in the closing stages. He rattled off the top five in the running at the 200m mark and correctly called the first five past the post, The Real Prince, Eight On Eighteen, Selukwe, Royal Victory and Madison Valley, despite their being some small margins between some of them. Sanele emphasised the name of the winner in true Zulu soccer-style commentary fashion, a deep guttural roar that makes it very exciting for the listeners. He said about this year’s Hollywoodbets Durban July, “I think it went well this year, it was for the second time and yes I had to improve. There were two good horses battling each other in the finish, so it was a very nice race to commentate.”

Sanele is fast becoming an institution in KZN racing with his commentaries on Gallop TV for

every meeting and other platforms for the big ones. He has become one of the most recognisable faces in KZN racing and is going from strength to strength. He looks to be a fine role model and there are sure to be some potential future commentators who have been inspired by his exciting calls.

David Thiselton

The most welcome aspect of the KZN Racing Awards held on Friday night in the Classic Room at Hollywoodbets Greyville was that only KZN horses were eligible i.e. horses whose home is a KZN yard – and it was thus the Stuart Ferrie-trained Gladatorian who was named KZN Horse Of The Year and the stalwart bay  walked away with two other awards too.

The Highveld region’s awards are called the Highveld Feature Season awards, so out of province horses can be awarded if they do well enough in the features, but the KZN Racing Awards have never had a qualifying clause like that. The awards were thus wrought with confusion in the period of a few years when it was not just limited to KZN horses. Some horses who happened to have run three times in the province were eligible in those days and there was also the use of words like “KZN domiciled”, but that method of naming the award winners thankfully looks to have been scrapped.

The other change was there was only one winner for the age group awards and not a winner for each gender.

The Stuart Ferrie-trained Gladatorian’s marvellous five-year-old season included winning the Gr 2 IOS Drill Hall Stakes over 1400m, finishing a narrow third in the Gr 1 wfa Gold Challenge over 1600m and he won the Gr 1 HKJC Champions Cup over 1800m. The Erasmus Thoroughbreds CC-bred Vercingetorix gelding also finished second in the Gr 2 Allied Steelrode Onamission Charity Mile at Turffontein among other good performances. He was named KZN Horse Of The Year, KZN Middle Distance Champion and KZN Champion Older Male.

The two-year-old winner was the Tienie Prinsloo-trained Vercingetorix filly Quickstepgal, who represented Rakesh Singh, but has subsequently been sold to the Laurence Wernars family. Quickstepgal, who was bred by Marsh Shirtliff’s Greenacres Trust, won three out of five starts, including the Tote Strelitzia Stakes and Listed Ridgemont Devon Air Stakes and she was runner up in the Gr 2 Splashout Golden Slipper.

The Peter Muscutt-trained Soqrat colt I Salute You, owned by Messrs Tony Zackey, E C Abraham, T Herdon, K Nattar & Miss Trinisha Pillay and bred by Shadwell Stud, was the three-year-old Champion having won the Listed WSB Sledgehammer and Listed Michel Nairac Appreciation Stakes, both in open fields.

The Gareth van Zyl-trained Drakenstein Stud-bred Duke Of Marmalade gelding King Pelles was a dominant winner of the Champion Stayers Award, having closed out his season with victories in the Tote Derby, the Durban Gold Vase and the World Pool Gold Cup, all Gr 3s, and he had earlier won a Gr 3 in Cape Town too. He is owned by Lucky Vest 12 CC (Nom: Mr Ravi Padayachee), Messrs D D MacLean, Gary Player Stud Farm (Pty) Ltd & N V Parmanand.

The Hollywood Racing-owned Hemel ‘N Aarde Stud-bred What A Winter mare Asiye Phambili was voted Champion Sprinter and Champion Older Mare. In Gareth van Zyl’s care she won the Grade 2 Sceptre Stakes and Grade 3 Southern Cross during the Cape Summer, before being transferred back to Duncan Howells for Champions Season, in which she was a narrow second in the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint and a highly creditable third against the boys in the Gr 1 wfa Mercury Sprint.

Gareth Van Zyl retained his Champion KZN Trainer title with 49 wins, comfortably clear of Dean Kannemeyer and Garth Puller who had 43 wins each in KZN. Gareth, who has now won the KZN championship three times, delivered a touching speech in which he thanked his father Gavin for keeping a KZN yard going which enabled him to have something to fall back on when things began “crumbling” in the Cape.

The Champion Apprentice Award was shared by Brevan Plaatjies and Mxolisi Mbuto who each rode 14 winners in KZN, although Plaatjies’ additional winners around the country were enough to secure him the Equus Award as National Champion Apprentice.

Hollywood Racing, the national Champion Owners, were duly crowned Champion Owners of KwaZulu-Natal while Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein emerged as leading breeders in the province for the second consecutive year.

In the special awards’ category, Tawanda Taruvinga was voted KZN’s Racing Personality of the Year. Tawanda’s infectious smile, fiery passion, creative talent, and effervescent personality have made him a popular figure amongst the local racing fraternity and a valuable asset to Race Coast KZN’s social media and broadcast teams.

Anita Akal presented her annual award to Race Coast KZN’s Marketing Executive Stephen Marshall, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the sport of horseracing in general and to the success of Champions Season 2025 in particular.