One of Southern Africa’s finest trainers Ricky Maingard is back at one of his old stamping grounds, Cape Town, where he is hoping to build up a stable big enough to be competitive.
He retains a yard in his home country, Mauritius, and has opened one at Milnerton.
He was attracted by the dynamism of Cape Racing brought about by the drive and astute business sense of Greg Bortz.
Therefore, it was fitting to hear Bortz mentioning Wolf Power as one of the greats who had inspired his own passion for the sport when speaking on Saturday of his hopes that the brilliant Charles Dickens would inspire newcomers to become racing fans.
The famous grey Wolf Power was trained by Maingard and among the big races he won was Cape Town’s flagship race, The Met.
Asked to confirm Wolf Power was the best he had ever trained, Ricky replied, “Yes, by far. I have trained many good horses but he was world class, he was a once in a lifetime horse and was in a class of his own.”
Ricky has about 45 years of experience as a trainer and said he was never going to retire.
He said, “I have been blessed with good health. Racing has been my livelihood for close to 50 years and I still enjoy getting up in the mornings and being around horses. I am happy. Why would I want to retire? I would be bored watching TV at home and my wife would chase me out of the house!”
Ricky has won all of Mauritius’ biggest races since opening a yard there just over a decade ago, including the island’s flagship race, The Maiden Cup, three times.
However, the stakes money in Mauritius went down by 60% during Covid and, sadly, the prospects of it recovering do not look good.
Ricky’s interest was thus piqued by the positive news coming out of Cape Town and he made the decision to open a yard here.
He said, “Cape Town is very familar to me, I lived here for six years previously and loved it. The situation in racing here is changing dramatically and I am delighted and very excited to be given an opportunity to be part of it. My object is to have a few horses to train and enjoy it. I fully realise it will take some time to build up and the big yards here are very strong, so it is difficult to compete. A trainer can’t do without support. Quite a few owners in Mauritius have become despondent with what is happening there, so I will get some support from them. I hope to also attract some local owners and also some owners from overseas. Covid has now eased so the overseas supporters of racing will be returning.”
Ricky said a Milnerton barn contained enough stables for 32 horses, which would likely be a perfect number for him.
He said he was fortunate to have two fine assistant trainers in Mauritius and Cape Town respectively, which would enable him to spend the large part of the summer in Cape Town and the large part of the winter in Mauritius, which would coincide with their big race seasons respectively.
He said, “Jevin Awotar is my assistant trainer in Mauritius, he worked for Brett Crawford and has experience in Dubai and England. Kitt Kensley, who has worked for me before, is my assistant in Cape Town.”
Maingard currently has 12 horses at Milnerton and obviously needs more than that.
Mauritian owners bought six for him at the Ready To Run Sale.
He has also bought a couple of good horses in training i.e. Grade 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge winner Al Muthana (Deep Field) and Street Outlaw (Master Of My Fate), whom he has always owned but who was was formerly trained by Vaughan Marshall.
Ricky felt Saturday’s Grade 1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas was the best race to test whether Street Outlaw would stay a mile, because of the stronger pace of a Grade 1 event. He clearly did not see it out.
He said Al Muthana had one or two issues, but hoped he will have solved them by the time of the L’Ormarins King’s Plate on January 7, which is his first big target.
Ricky, born and brought up in Mauritius, is an aeronautical engineer by profession and after studying in England he worked for a French company and ended up in South Africa.
When they asked him to return to France, he decided to resign and try his hand at training racehorses.
He started out at The Vaal in the 1970s.
Eric Sands was one of his assistants in his early days.
Success came quickly and he was soon given an opportunity to move to Summerveld, which he jumped at and stayed there for some 20 years.
Wolf Power was the horse who well and truly put Maingard on the map.
He had wanted to buy the imposing grey as a yearling.
He received a phonecall one day from bloodstock agent Mickey Louw telling him Godfrey Kuter had decided to liquidate his equine holdings and Wolf Power, who was trained in his first three races by Herman Brown, was for sale for R100,000.
It took Maingard ten minutes to say yes.
He recalled, “That was a huge amount of money in those days, and a lot of people thought I was crazy. He had only won one Maiden Juvenile Plate by that stage.”
Denham Rodwell and the Birch Brothers (who bred him) took the majority of the shares and Louw took a small share.
Wolf Power was a good two-year-old and three-year-old but blossomed into a legend as a four-year-old.
He broke four course records, two race records and set two SA record times. He was the first SA horse to go under 94 seconds for a mile.
Wolf Power won 18 races, 17 of them features and retired with record earnings of R729,037.
Ricky believed Wolf Power to essentially be a miler, who was at his best at 1400m.
Equine hero Wolf Power (Flirting Around) and trainer Ricky Maingard (southafricanracehorsewordpress.com).
During his Summerveld years Maingard used to spend three months in Cape Town in the summer.
When Ricky bought into Capstone feed company, whose main factory was in Cape Town, he moved from Summerveld to the Cape and stayed there for about 5 to 6 years.
He felt there was a downturn in SA racing about 12 years ago and decided to move to Mauritius.
He is now back in the city where he won the Met once and the Queen’s Plate twice with Wolf Power and the Cape Derby with both Impressive Style (Sea Cottage) and Shah’s Star (Foveros), among other big wins.
Maingard rates Kenilworth one of the best racecourses in the world.
Maingard won the July in 1994 with Space Walk, who was the beneficiary of an objection by fifth-placed Pas De Quoi against the winner Surfing Home.
He has trained many other top horses and some who South African fans will remember include Bodrum, Respectable and Jungle Sands.
