The last start for both Piere Strydom and Herman van der Westhuizen (picture via youtube)
Herman van der Westhuizen, the Highveld’s chief starter, also had his last day in his position today as he has reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.
He has been working at the start for 40 years and felt he had a good few years left in him.
He said, “it’s very sad. I still feel I’m good enough to do the job, but I’m 65 and I’ve got to retire.”
Herman joined the South African Jockey Academy in 1975.
He was a jockey for a few years, but had to give up as he got too heavy.
He recalled, “I began working at the start in 1985 as a a handler, it was a job Mr Curling organized for me. I was a handler until 2010 and then became the assistant starter.”
He later became the head starter.
He also used to ride work for the like of Ormond Ferraris, Charles Laird and Gary Alexander, but a bad fall ended his career in the saddle.
He said of the future, “I’m still going to be with the horses, schooling horses and everything for starting stalls, and I hope to get a job with a trainer as a stable employee so I can do more work with horses. I really enjoy the game, enjoy the horses and a lot of the people in the game.”
Chief stipe Ryan Hutchinson said about the retiring starter, “These guys you don’t just replace overnight. It takes many years of training. They’ve got to learn the body language of horses. They’ve got to accommodate the jockeys as best as they can. It’s not an easy job. And these guys are lost to the industry because it’s mandatory retirement, unfortunately. We would love to hold on to them, but these days come around.”
He concluded, “I think Herman is privileged to share the platform on the same day as Pierre Strydom, who is a real legend of our industry. All the best to Piere and Herman in their future endeavours.”
