Gavin van Zyl after winning a race recently at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth (Wayne Marks).
Gavin van Zyl will be handing in his license at the end of this month and playing a more background role as assistant to his son Gareth, who is the reigning KZN Champion trainer.
Gavin, speaking about his training career, said, “It has been a wonderful journey and I would like to give a special thanks to Opensea Mhlamvu who has been my right hand man from day one and has been a very valuable asset to my business. He will be retiring with me. A special thanks to all of the grooms too and to all of my loyal owners. I wouldn’t want to single any of the owners out but must mention Errol Budlender, who has been with me from day one, and also his good friend Paul Rencken. Errol owned my first winner and is one of the owners of our winner today at Turffontein (Go Flichity). I would also like to thank all of the operators, and in particular Gold Circle, who have always accommodated my needs and given excellent service.”
Gavin has been around horses his whole life and looked back on a long and enjoyable career as both a jockey and trainer.
He grew up in Turffontein and a love of horses filled the memories of his childhood.
As a toddler he used to spend time at the yard of Dave Marx.
Later, he would go to trainer Michael Roberts’ yard every day after school and work as a groom and take horses for walks.
He was lucky to be lightly-framed and was enrolled in the SA Jockey Academy.
He rode his first winner in 1976 over the Greyville 1900m on Flight Savon trained by the late Terry Ryan.
After riding 76 winners as an apprentice he joined Jean Barnard (Heming) and had instant success. He was beaten to the Transvaal championship by Jeff Lloyd by just one win in his first season.
He never looked back and went on to have fine working relationships with the like of Stanley Ferreira, Alistair Gordon, Joe Joseph, Clodagh Shaw, Doug Campbell, Brett Warren, Alec Laird, Joe Soma, Tobie Spies, St. John Gray, Mike Azzie and Cyril Naidoo.
He rode just short of 2000 winners, including multiple Graded winners, and was associated with such horses as Smackeroo, Serena, Poetic, Rain Forest, Moccasin, Extra Cover, Eliza, Shu Shine Boy, Mill Hill, Roland’s Song, Special Preview, Novgorod and Lemon And Lime. On one memorable occasion he rode two Grade 1 winners in a day at Scottsville, winning the SA Fillies Guineas on the St. John Gray-trained Finest View and winning the SA Fillies Sprint on the Mike Azzie-trained Harry’s Charm.
He had two stints in the USA and ended his career as champion jockey of Macau.
While planning his retirement in Macau he bought four horses online. Upon returning to SA he wrote his trainers exam, in 2006. He acquired stables at Binnie Walker’s place near Summerveld, as the training centre had no available boxes.
His first winner was with his second runner, Laser Fan (Fanatic Dane), who was one of the four he had bought online. The filly was owned by Errol Budlender and Alan Mellor.
Laser Fan also won Gavin his first stakes race, winning the Grade 3 Flamboyant Stakes.
Gavin went on to have about 800 wins as a trainer. He won 45 stakes races including eight Grade 1 wins courtesy of The Apache (X2), Slumdogmillionaire (X2), Along Came Polly (X2), Seal and Gabor.
He said the best he trained was The Apache and the best filly was Along Came Polly. He spoke about the “huge hearts” both had.
Both horses have good stories behind their respective purchases.
The Apache, a Mogok colt bred by Scott Brothers, was chosen by owner Winston Chow on the grounds of his birth date aligning with the stars.
Gavin bought Along Came Polly, a Varsfontein Stud-bred fillly by Judpot, in training.
She caught his eye in the parade ring at Clairwood one day when making her debut and then ran a good second in a minor feature, the King’s Pact Stakes.
He spoke to the jockey Craig Zackey afterwards who confirmed the horse was “very nice”.
The trainer of Along Came Polly’s attention would have been averted, because that was in fact the infamous race that saw a punters’ protest causing the meeting to be abandoned. Along Came Polly’s stablemate My Sanctuary was the hot favourite and her gate did not open, but she then burst through the gates and ran on for third, meaning she could not be declared a non-runner.
Gavin had to play it cleverly this time because the previous time he had expressed an interest in a horse some regular owners from the horse’s yard had got wind of it and bought the horse themselves.
He therefore got owner Brian Burnard, with whom he had a very good spell, to phone Along Came Polly’s owner Ian van Schalkwyk and say he would like to buy the filly chiefly because his wife loved the name!
Along Came Polly had cost R60,000 at the National Yearling Sales and was not a good track worker, so the connections were happy to settle for Burnard’s decent offer.
She went on to win two Grade 1s and had numerous Grade 1 places for stakes earnings of R1,639,000 and, furthermore, she was sold on to race in the USA.
Besides Gavin’s Grade 1 wins, he regards his best achievement as sending out four winners on a day twice in the month of February in just his second season as a trainer. Both quadruples were at Scottsville.
Another memorable day was sending out the one-two in the Grade 1 Champions Cup, The Apache and Bulsara.
Bulsara, a twice Grade 3 winner, was owned by Bridget Oppenheimer, who Gavin said had been very very good to him. Other memorable Oppenheimer horses he trained were Franny, also a twice Grade 3 winner, and Prestic, who won a Grade 2 and a Grade 3.
Gavin built quickly from his small beginning and had “lots of support from lots of different owners” and is grateful to all of them.
His training career has rewardingly gone full circle, because while his son Chesney was running his satellite in Johannesburg with success he got to spend seven years at Summerveld with Gareth as his assistant … he will now be in the background as assistant to Gareth.
He is looking forward chiefly to having a PR role, which he enjoys.
His sales strategy in the past has relied chiefly on hard work, but he believes he will now also be able to visit stud farms prior to the sales.
He added, “All of my owners were happy to move their horses to Gareth, so he will now have about 85 horses. He is already a Grade 1-winning trainer and I think he is ready to take control of a bigger string and to make a greater impact on South African racing.”
Gavin is still feeling the effects of a stroke suffered two years ago, which has seen him unable to do some of the things he used to do, such as playing golf. However, he is still able to enjoy life and is looking forward to this next chapter.
Gavin reserved the final thank you for his wife Shannon who has always been a stalwart supporter behind the scenes.
