In a rags to riches story fit for a fairytale, Grassy Park resident Ashwin Reynolds has become the first horse owner of colour to win the 2021 Vodacom Durban July Handicap, South Africa’s richest horse race, with his horse Kommetdieding.
The R4.25 million race was held at Greyville Racecourse on Saturday with only trainers, jockeys, core racing personnel and the media in attendance due to Covid-19 regulations.
Ashwin, 47, who has a construction company, says his passion for horses and horseracing started when he was six years old, after he was told to track the results of the horse races for his grandfather, reports IOL.
“If you want to excel in this world, you need to have a dream. It doesn’t matter where you come from. I grew up very poor with six siblings,” he says.
“My father died when I was nine years old, and from then my grandfather took over as our father figure.
“I never completed school, as I had to leave school to work and help my mother at an early age.
“Through all of this, I had a dream of one day owning my own horse, and winning this year’s Durban July was just a bonus.”
He bought his first horse in 2015.
Ashwin says the support from his family, friends and the community has been overwhelming since the news of his win.
“It’s not my horse anymore, it’s the people’s horse. There are many ways to go about buying a horse and the game is open to everyone, it’s not exclusive to the rich and elite – it’s there for everybody,” he says of the three-year-old colt.
Leading up to the big race, Kommetdieding was trained by father and daughter team Harold Crawford and Michelle Rix and ridden by jockey Gavin Lerena.
“It was a wonderful training experience, and he’s a very easy horse to train, which made our jobs a lot easier,” said the co-trainers.
“There’s normally quite a few hiccups when it comes to training horses, especially at this level, but there were no hiccups with Kommetdieding.”
Gavin congratulated Ashwin and said Kommetdieding was a fabulous horse with a big match temperament and talent to win, as proved over the weekend.
Ashwin explains how he named his champion horse: “It is Afrikaans slang among the Cape Flats coloured community and it means ’Bring it on’ as in ‘I’m not scared, bring it on’.”