Jockey S’Manga Khumalo on the winning horse Heavy Metal after making history in the Durban July. Photo: Jackie Clausen
The first time S’manga Khumalo encountered a horse, he was scared.
“I was really nervous,” he recalled. “At that time I was a small boy weighing about 30kg and here’s this big animal, 500kg, next to me. It terrified me a little bit but it grew in me and I ended up getting better at it.”
So much better that, 14 years later, Khumalo has made history by becoming the first black winner of Africa’s biggest horse race – the Vodacom Durban July.
With his crystal stud earrings, peroxide hair and horseshoe tattoo on his hand, the 28-year-old – nicknamed ‘Bling’ – is the charismatic rising star of a sport long associated with South African white privilege.
It all began when Khumalo, one of five children of a domestic worker in KwaMashu township near Durban, was switching from school to school to escape the violence that scarred South Africa in the early 1990s. As the smallest boy in his class, he wasn’t likely to win many fights.
“Other kids called me names like ‘small one’ and ‘shorty’. I always prayed and said please God, let me be taller, at least people won’t tease me.”
But small was beautiful in the eyes of a talent scout who came to black schools looking for potential jockeys and set Khumalo’s future off on an entirely different path.
“When the guy asked me if I was interested, I said yes. At that time I was 14 or 15 and didn’t have any plans but when this opportunity came I took it with both hands and I haven’t looked back since. I had all the features: the body build, the shoe size and the height. When they did the interviews, everything went well.”
In 2000, Khumalo joined the Durban jockey academy, a tough five-year apprenticeship of early starts, mucking out stables and cleaning horses after riding them. It included a spell in Zimbabwe, where he rode his first winner.
Asked if he had experienced racism during his career, Khumalo replied: “People are not the same. There are some people who will take you in and there are some people who will always have negativity. But I’m not the type of guy who looks back, I just keep my cool and just do my work.” – The Guardian
Click here to watch a video of Khumalo talking to David Smith about his path to success.
