Comeback King bids for his first win in the big race.
Andrew Fortune is the figure in the spotlight at Saturday’s WSB Cape Town Met race meeting at Kenilworth. Him, and champion trainer Justin Snaith, for whom The Candyman is booked to ride 11 well-fancied horses on the 12-race card.
But it is 57-year-old Fortune who will be centre-stage – thanks to his loud, witty, bravura personality, his jockeyship skills and his amazing redemption life story.
“He’ll be unplayable if he wins the Met!” commented race caller Alistair Cohen this week, conjuring up visions of the ebullient rider playing to an adoring crowd in the winner’s circle.
If that were to happen, it would be Fortune’s first victory in Cape Town’s famous race and lifetime dream come true. It’s not a big stretch to imagine it happening as he partners the 5-2 ante-post race favourite See It Again in the R5-million, Grade 1 contest.
The rider is adamant Snaith-trained See It Again will prevail – as are many knowledgeable pundits after the horse’s brilliant prep runs in the Green Point Stakes and L’Ormarins King’s Plate when he twice finished third, running on strongly over 1600m. The Met’s 2000m will be ideal for the six-year-old gelding and his No 10 draw will be no hindrance in a small field.
Comeback story
In the midst of the Met day fanfare, Fortune’s extraordinary comeback story will be told and retold – from his beating drug addiction, to becoming champion jockey, to “retirement” in 2017, to emigration to Australia, to a return to the saddle back home at a ripe old age after shedding about 40kg.
More than a few racing people reckon The Candyman is riding better these days than even in his championship season in 2009. One of those is Snaith, not known for being a fanboy of jockeys, who has entrusted some of his precious thoroughbreds to the veteran.
“What I like about Andrew is the kindness he shows horses,” said the champ this week.
In a recent interview with Idol Horse magazine, Fortune confirmed that trait: “For me, we all can ride horses, but we all can’t understand horses. There’s a huge difference between those two things. And that’s me. From a young age, I’ve been able to do that. Be a bit kind, a bit nice, communicate with them to a degree, speak to them all the time. So that’s me as a person as well, and that’s why they go like that.”
Controversial figure
The man’s gift for getting horses to outperform is plain for all to see, but his antics and eccentricities have not endeared him to racing officialdom over the years.
He has served umpteen suspensions, with rule violations covering everything from the drug issues to over-robust riding to that loose tongue. Even after he hung up his saddle and became an assistant in wife Ashley’s Vaal training yard, Fortune was seldom far from controversy.
In 2023 the Fortune family emigrated to join a training operation in Australia. Much of his time there was spent mucking out stables and he ballooned from about 58kg to 90kg. When Aussie authorities turned down his application to be a humble exercise-track rider, he resolved to make a wildly unlikely race-riding comeback.
Out of the blue, he was back in South Africa announcing his intention to regain his licence. The National Horseracing Authority refused to grant him one, doubtless due to the perils of weight loss in middle age, Fortune’s history of medication abuse and his outspoken ways.
‘Closely monitored’
But the man’s remarkable never-say-die attitude, his record of being drug-free for 18 years, his evident weight loss with intermittent fasting and the appeals of fans eventually wore down officialdom. They set conditions though, not least payment of an astonishing R500,000 fine for admission of guilt for past statements construed as discrediting racing, with only half of it suspended for five years. Another sanction was that he not accept rides at below 58kg for a probationary period. He was warned his behaviour would be “closely monitored”.
“They done what they had to do,” said Fortune philosophically at the time. “I’ve got to get a little bit humble… I’m going to change my attitude… I’m going to the races in a suit, dress well, look the part, and we’ll take it from there.”
He has taken it to universal acclaim and admiration for uncommon guts and determination, amassing 32 winners from 175 mounts this season – at a phenomenal 18.3% win rate – and riding as light as 54kg if needed.
This tale deserves a fairy tale ending. But racing is a cruel business. One thing does seem highly likely, though: The Candyman will pop up in the winner’s circle sometime on Saturday.
