This Southern Hemisphere season marks the 20th anniversary of the appearance of a Hong Kong equine legend called Silent Witness, whose career also turned into one of the great South African racing stories.
Felix Coetzee, a three-times South African Champion jockey who played an integral part in the phenomenal success of trainer Terrance Millard in the 1980s and early 1990’s, was left contemplating an ordinary looking future when lying in a hospital bed towards the end of his sixth Hong Kong racing season in 1998.
That season, his first for trainer David Hill, had been a decent one and he had regained his confidence after five battling seasons for trainer Brian Kan.
However the Hong Kong Jockey Club had ruled against Hill retaining a jockey for the following season owing to the small size of his string.
Coetzee’s future looked even bleaker when he took a fall on a Hill-trained horse, breaking a bone in his shoulder.
Coetzee hardly expected the wheel of fortune to change while lying on his back in hospital recovering from surgery… but change it did.
One of Hill’s owners came to visit him, bringing with him the six-times Hong Kong champion jockey, Tony Cruz, who was now enjoying remarkable success as a trainer.
The humble Coetzee was amazed when Cruz offered him a retainer.
The pair had soon formed the most stable working relationship in the cut-throat Hong Kong racing environment and with Coetzee’s help Cruz won his first Trainers Championship in the 1999/2000 season, a title he would win again in 2004/2005.
“He is very popular with owners and is a brilliant trainer and outstanding horseman.” said Coetzee in a 2007 interview for the Racegoer. .
Coetzee learnt a lot about race-riding in his six years with Cruz.
However no amount of winners was ever going to top the fame he achieved through his association with the iconic Cruz-trained superstar Silent Witness.
Silent Witness gained legendary status when breaking the long-time Hong Kong record of ten wins unbeaten and he became world famous when increasing this streak to 17, thus bettering the 16-win streaks of American legends Cigar and Citation.
Coetzee rode him in every one of his 29 races.
The gelding by El Moxie was not fashionably bred, but was already being talked about after impressing in barrier trials as a two-year-old in Australia.
He was bought by a Bloodstock Agent on behalf of the high-profile, flamboyant Hong Kong businessman, Archie Da Silva.
Coetzee recalled that in the beginning Silent Witness didn’t enjoy slow work.
“He wanted to get on with it and show us what he had.”.
However Cruz eventually got Silent Witness to accept his way of working.
“He then became the laziest horse in Hong,” recalled Coetzee. “However, he was very perceptive, he never missed a thing.”
Silent Witness was last out in the mornings, because if there were other horses on the track he would want to take them on.
He was soon toying with his rivals in sprint events on the racetrack.
“He was a phenomenal horse,” said Coetzee. “He just always seemed to know what to do.”
“He timed his jump to perfection and would outpace everything early and secure the rail. He would then relax, prick his ears and idle along gazing at something in the distance. However, in reality, he never lost concentration and could sense any horse coming up behind him. He would then simply step up a gear and see them off.”
On one occasion the race-commentator had roared, “This is all too easy! Felix is going to have to give his riding fee to the Community Chest!”
The pressure on Coetzee mounted as Silent Witness’s unbeaten run continued.
However, the pair enjoyed an indescribable connection and something about the horse’s posture and the way he positioned his ears often seemed to say to Coetzee “Don’t worry, I’ve got this under control.”
Silent Witness equalled Cigar’s record on an especially high pressure day for Coetzee at the Champions Day meeting in 2004 and then got the magic number 17 when sent over 1400m for the first time in the Silver Jubilee.
He then tasted defeat for the first time when sent over a mile, losing in the last stride to Bullish Luck, a two-time Hong Kong Champion miler and the 2006 Horse Of The Year.
The disappointment which accompanied the defeat is best captured by the words of Freench jockey Gerald Mosse, who was aboard Bullish Luck.
He said, “You don’t usually notice the crowd while you are riding, but that day it was very loud, all the way down the straight, but in the final strides something very strange happened – when it was clear I would win, the crowd just stopped. All of a sudden, it was like somebody switched off the volume.”
Coetzee himself revealed in an interview years later he walked away from that defeat like a broken man and in his mind over the years has rerun the race thousands of times, trying to figure how he could have done something different for the first 1599m, although he is being a touch hard on himself as Silent Witness would not have lost had he been kept to sprints.
Silent Witness made up for the defeat two runs later in his only start abroad in the Sprinters Stakes in Japan.
And this was one of the most memorable weekend’s of Coetzee’s career, so probably lessened the pain of that defeat.
The day before the race Coetzee was giving Silent Witness his normal slow canter when the horse suddenly stumbled and dived nose-first into the dirt. Coetzee still wears the proud scar on his arm where Silent Witness stood on him upon getting up. However, at the time it all seemed a bad dream as he watched his charge bolting into the distance.
The gelding hurtled around the track and was only stopped on his second lap.
It was little wonder Coetzee punched the air when Silent Witness won from a wide draw the next day. That his family, including his smartly-dressed five-year-old son, had been with him in the parade ring made it a doubly special moment.
Silent Witness has enjoyed his retirement at Living Legends, an International Home of Rest for Champion Horses located in Woodlands Historic Park in Melbourne.
Coetzee visited him shortly before the 2007 interview and was amazed by the change in the horse.
“He used to be very responsive to me in Hong Kong and did all his tricks when I approached, but he has now become an animal and is doing horse things.”
There was no mistaking who was boss of his paddock.
*Felix’s is currently the chief riding instructor for the Hong Kong Jockey Club and is head of its widely-acclaimed apprentice academy.
