A record-breaker’s working Wednesday
Richard Fourie doesn’t need to chase headlines anymore — he already rewrote the record book. In the 2023/24 season he became South African racing’s first jockey to ride past 335 winners in a single campaign, finishing on 378 and smashing a mark that had stood for 25 years since Anthony Delpech’s 334. Stable jockey to the powerful Justin Snaith yard, with close to 700 career winners and eight Grade 1s to his name, Fourie’s reputation is built less on any single ride than on sheer relentlessness in the saddle — and Wednesday’s card at Fairview was a tidy demonstration of exactly that.
He was engaged on nine of the day’s runners, a book that ranged across half a dozen different stables, and came away with two winners to show for it — bookending the card from the very first race to the very last.
New Day’s third-time charm
New Day, trained by Alan Greeff, had finished third on each of its first two starts before Fourie steered it home in race one — its maiden win at the third attempt, and a tidy way to open the book for the day.
Wild Fig finally breaks through
The story that stood out, though, came in the last. Wild Fig had been around the blocks eleven times without ever finding the winner’s enclosure — a string of placed efforts and minor finishes that read like a horse always knocking on the door. Fourie partnered it in race eight, and on the eleventh attempt, the door finally opened. For a yard and an owner who’d watched plenty of close-but-not-quite runs, it was the kind of result that makes a long week feel worthwhile.
Two very different stories, two winners, one jockey who simply kept turning up in the right silks at the right time — which, eleven years into a career that’s already rewritten the history books, is exactly the reputation Richard Fourie has built.
If you’re following today’s Fairview card, the full racecard and form guide is at cfox.co.za/predictions.
