New King served up on a Plate at Kenilworth

There might be a handful of old timers who remember when Cape Town’s Queen’s Plate was the King’s Plate. That was in 1951.

In 2023 it’ll switch back to the old name (not the original) due to King Charles III now being on the throne of the former colonial power.

South Africa’s oldest horse race will be contested for the 162nd time in January – under the new name.

Rich history

It was inaugurated in 1861 when Queen Victoria donated a silver salver and 500 sovereigns for the winner of a two-mile race at Kenilworth in Cape Town.

It became the King’s Plate during the reigns of Edward VII, George V, Edward VII and George VI, reverting to its original name in 1952 when Elizabeth II got the job.

A top horse at the time, Dispatch, landed the prizes for his owner, Mr Chiappini, the first time the Queen’s Plate was contested, setting the tone for a succession of true champions – particularly in more recent years when the race was reduced to a mile (then 1600m).

Sea Cottage, Sledgehammer, Politician, Wolf Power and Jet Master are golden names in South African racing history – and all of them won the Queen’s Plate twice. Pocket Power did it four times and Legal Eagle thrice.

Other great winners include William Penn, Bold Monarch, In Full Flight, Foveros, Spanish Pool, Mark Anthony, Flaming Rock and Empress Club. No moderate nags win the premier mile race in South Africa.

Adopted from Canada

It seems Queen Vic got the idea for a silver plate for Cape Town a year earlier, when that other colony Canada petitioned her to give them one, which she did. That Queen’s Plate (also this week renamed the King’s Plate) is the oldest race in Canada and is run at Woodbine in Toronto – though the plate itself has long gone missing and the trophy is now a gold cup.

The earliest Queen’s Plate superstar in Cape Town was a horse called Riley, bred by local racing luminary Mr Melck. Like Pocket Power more than 100 years later, Riley won the race four times, up until 1882.

He was described by historian Jean Jaffee as “a great character” who liked to run his races in his own way some lengths behind the rest of the field. He was a big favourite with Malay racegoers who would shout him home: “Kom nu Riley!”

Interestingly, when the British royal family – including Elizabeth – visited South Africa in 1947, during the Cape racing season, the race staged for them wasn’t the Queen’s Plate but the Cape Derby. Indeed, at the time, the Queen’s Plate didn’t have the glamour it has since acquired under the sponsorship and promotion of the Rupert family’s L’Ormarins wine estate.

L’Ormarins has turned the Queen’s (sorry King’s) Plate meeting into one of the world’s most prestigious – ranked alongside the Breeder’s Cup and Melbourne Cup in various lists of posh racing events.

In 1947, the royals also attended race meetings in Durban and Johannesburg, where King’s Cups were featured. The former survives to this day and has been known by that name throughout the past 70-plus years; the latter has vanished without trace.

The 2023 L’Ormarins King’s Plate will be held on Saturday 7th January at Kenilworth Racecourse in Cape Town. As is customary, the British high commissioner is likely to be there – to read out a message of good wishes from the new King Charles.