Alec Hogg, founder of Moneyweb and Biznews, was a good friend of Ormond Ferraris and wrote the introduction to Ferraris’s recently published autobiography ‘Thoroughly! Seven decades in the sport of Kings & Clowns’ written in collaboration with Charl Pretorius.

As Hogg alludes to in his introduction carried below, this is a book that belongs on the bookshelf of everyone even remotely interested in thoroughbred horseracing.

The arrival of my pre-publication copy of Thoroughly sparked a degree of trepidation. 

For four decades, reading has been at the core of my personal and professional existence. Far too many books, probably 90% of those published, are a waste of time. This worthless quotient rises still further with autobiographies – the author’s own life story. 

More than a few relationships have been destroyed by honest feedback to authors. And as Ormond Ferraris would expect nothing less that brutal honesty, I feared the worst. 

Overlay this with the subject being a very private man, one who has always counted his words before releasing them. And this project was unlikely material for a page-turner. 

I need not have worried. 

With the expert assistance of talented wordsmith Charl Pretorius, the end-product is a gem. From how to pick a yearling through to Distinctly’s July, from the reason he was forced to abandon the Cape to why he tossed it all in, there is much to savour. 

Admitted, I struggled to do so, racing through the pages like a Ferraris runner at the business end of the Oaks. Then again, the real judge of any book is the number of times it is revisited. Which in my case will be many. 

Thoroughly opens a long-closed window to extraordinary life. For those of us who know and love the man, it is classic Ormond Ferraris, offered without apology or embellishment. Because that’s his way. He has always told it as he sees it. Most often correctly.

There is much in the pages which follow that paints an accurate picture of this unparalleled horseman whose love for the thoroughbred, whose principles and integrity, will live long after he has left us. 

His track record proves him to have been an excellent judge of horseflesh, among the best to set foot in one of SA’s sales rings. Not as evident, though, is an unerring ability to judge human beings. 

Bear that in mind as you absorb the stories and insights that follow. To illustrate, indulge me with one of my own stories. 

For years, whether joining his first string for pre-dawn work, a coffee in his Turffontein office or on memorable trips to breeding farms, Ormond and I fenced over differing opinions about the SA racing industry’s dominant owner, Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste. 

Ormond derogatively referred to the man as “Joostie”, dismissing propaganda that claimed he was the country’s most successful business-builder. To him, the celebrated entrepreneur was purely and simply “a rubbish”. A man he had seen to be without without honour. One who pursued his own narrow interests and to hell with the way it affected the horses. 

He remained deeply suspicious of Jooste’s acclaimed business prowess which transformed his small company into a global giant – and its CEO into the dominant South African owner and house guest at the most prestigious racing establishments, including Ireland’s fabled Coolmore.

Ormond wasn’t swayed in this conviction, even though the world’s biggest banks, the most respected investment analysts, the clutch of accounting experts on Steinhoff’s directorate and even Big Four auditor firm Deloitte publicly backed the billionaire.  

At his peak, such was Jooste’s grip on SA racing that pretty much every trainer had a set of black green and gold silks hanging in their cupboards. These well known colours almost made it into the Turffontein mancave. But not quite. 

After much nagging from my side, Ormond eventually relented and agreed to train a horse for him, provided I race it in partnership with Jooste. 

When the poor beast arrived, its chosen trainer was apoplectic, sending the float straight back to where it came from. The incident gets a brief mention in this book. 

The story which hasn’t been told is how Ormond saw the arrival of this “deformed” animal as confirmation of everything he believed about “Joostie”. In the months and years since, he spared no opportunity of reminding me of it. Repeating his warning that this man was not to be trusted. 

It was an unerringly accurate insight, as the rest of humanity only discovered much later when, in December 2017, Jooste was unmasked as the engineer of South Africa’s biggest ever corporate fraud. A con job that cost investors hundreds of billions of rand. 

Then again, in a long and colourful career, Ormond knows better than most that racing is an enterprise which has always attracted society’s princes and knaves. The best and the worst of humanity.

Determining who fits where, is not always easy. Once again, OA Ferraris is an exception. For anyone who has met the man, there can be no doubt into which category he falls. Ever.