Stunning successes at the last two Rugby World Cups demonstrate South Africa can cut it at the summit of sport, but the outlook for the Rainbow Nation’s racing prospects has been much bleaker over the last few years.

Never a superpower, South Africa has been punching above its weight on a world stage since Camp Fire II landed what is now the King Charles III Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1907, while Hawaii, a star in his homeland before shining in the States in the late 1960s, went on to sire Derby winner Henbit and is also a footnote in the pedigree of US Triple Crown ace Justify and therefore this year’s Epsom hero and European champion City Of Troy.

The pioneering Mike de Kock, meanwhile, became a force at the Dubai World Cup Carnival and further afield, regularly butting heads with racing’s biggest names, often emerging on top.

However, his (and others’) international forays were derailed in 2011 when the European Union banned the direct import of equine athletes from South Africa due to fears over African horse sickness, which effectively meant the jurisdiction was cut adrift from international competition as many participants shunned the laborious alternative quarantine procedures.

The coronavirus pandemic caused more headwinds and played a part in the demise of Phumelela, which ran the majority of racecourses in the country, while fellow track operator Gold Circle also became troubled.

We nearly lost racing

“I was offered a job in Hong Kong five years ago and was going to take it,” says champion trainer Justin Snaith, who followed his father Chris into the profession. “I was out of here. There was no way I saw any light.”

Jehan Malherbe, a veteran of the industry whose many roles include racecaller and bloodstock agent, shared those fears.

“We nearly lost racing here,” he admits. “We were in a dark place, but the future looks good.”

Reasons for that optimism include investment from Mary Slack, a billionaire member of the Oppenheimer family known as the first lady of South African racing. Her patronage of 4Racing, which has replaced Phumelela, has been welcomed, as has Hollywoodbets’ proposed takeover of Gold Circle. Britain’s four-time champion jockey Oisin Murphy recently rode in the country’s richest race, the Betway Summer Cup, which was worth six million rand (£261,000/€314,000) and was an occasion that, according to Heather Morkel, Chief Executive Officer of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association of South Africa, was “golden – like the old days”.

“There’s been new influences and new people, and we’ve gone from ground zero to the complete opposite,” reveals Snaith. “You can’t believe the turnaround. We’re back to where we were and going forward so much better.”

Malherbe, who has overseen Slack’s racing and breeding interests for a number of years, describes the situation as “definitely more positive”, and that is echoed by Morkel, who has praised the emerging operators for “really coming to the party”.

There’s been a lot of work done to manage African horse sickness

Another reason all three have hope and excitement in their voices came in March when the ban on exporting horses to the EU was lifted.

“There’s been a lot of work done from a scientific perspective to manage African horse sickness,” Morkel adds.

“The groundwork, research, development, controls and PCR testing that has been done has been as a result of funding by owners and breeders in South Africa, and then, most recently, the Hong Kong Jockey Club, who have been incredibly supportive of racing and breeding here. We’re very lucky to have had that.”

The SA Equine Health & Protocols NPC (SAEHP), of which the legendary de Kock is a board member, has been the main driver in improving the situation, although Snaith’s frustrations are still clear.

“It’s the amount of time it’s taken to get right,” he continues. “It’s years of huge expense that racing has been spending through SAEHP. After all that time, we were worried we were actually further away than closer.

“All we want to do is compete fairly and, to put it into perspective, I’ve trained since 2000 and my father since 1972, and not one of us has had a horse with African horse sickness.”

Wasting little time in nominating a horse he would have loved to campaign abroad, Snaith says: “Jet Dark. He was deadly over seven furlongs and a mile and could easily have competed in Saudi Arabia, or Hong Kong – anywhere. I’d have been quite confident about that, but you need a good horse. One who wins well here, more than one Group 1 in any case.”

the exchange rate for South African rand against other currencies makes the market an attractive and affordable one.

Morkel’s 28 years in the industry include breeding in her own right and she is in little doubt how important the refound freedom will be.

Asked whether the restrictions played a bigger part in South African racing’s decline than the effect caused by the plight of Phumelela and Gold Circle, she replies: “That’s a tricky one, but yes, certainly, because one thing you want to do as a racing nation is to be able to breed and campaign internationally.

“Mike de Kock took us to Dubai and beyond and being able to do that with this ease of movement will help. I don’t think any other racing country in the world understands how it has impacted on us as a breeding and racing nation.”

Malherbe accepts “it’s not as if thousands of yearling buyers are going to pitch up on our shores” but shares the view with Snaith and Morkel that the exchange rate for South African rand against other currencies makes the market an attractive and affordable one.

He also references the interest shown this year in sales – another pillar of the rejuvenated industry enjoying a shot in the arm – by John Stewart, the big-spending part-owner of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Goliath, and Barry Irwin of Team Valor fame.

The respectable runs from Isivunguvungu (seventh in the Turf Sprint) and Beach Bomb (eighth in the Filly & Mare Turf) at November’s Breeders’ Cup are hardly likely to put off talent scouts either, especially as they took an established, more circuitous, non-EU route to the States, and, in the words of Snaith, “weren’t superstars”.

“I think if our best went, they could run into a place, so their runs were very encouraging” he adds.

I think readers would be shrewd to watch her

With that in mind, Malherbe is keen to see how Gimme A Nother, bred by Slack and her daughter Jessica Jell, who now races her, fares out there in 2025.

“She came out of the new protocols and went to France for her residency before she left for America,” he explains. “I think readers would be shrewd to watch her. She’s going to Graham Motion and we need to keep good stock here to perpetuate the bloodlines, but Jessica is keen to see where we are on the world stage and this filly will be a good test. She was pretty good here and I would think she’s capable of winning at the highest level in America for sure.”

And what about further glory across the globe?

“Are we going to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot? I doubt it,” Malherbe responds. “Are we going to win the King Charles III Stakes? It’s very doable. It’s a question of levels. We’ve been good enough to win in Hong Kong, we’ve been good enough to win in Dubai, and we were good in Singapore.

“A Group 1 winner here isn’t going to be a Group 1 winner aboard, but a champion or exceptional horse would hold its own. Mike de Kock was winning races all over the world with South African-bred horses, so there’s no reason that can’t start again, but at a level – I don’t think we’ll be winning the Arc soon.”

Arc or no Arc, it is impossible to miss the buoyancy surrounding the sport.

“South Africans generally are glass-half-full people,” Morkel concludes. “We’ve got longstanding breeders in South Africa who are completely committed to continuing the breeding legacy that has been established here. This definitely places us on a better footing and what the export market does indirectly is improve optimism for the future of racing and breeding in South Africa, but particularly breeding.

“If people are optimistic, they are prepared to invest a little more and, hopefully, that means they can compete on a world stage.”