Stanley Amos

PICTURE this scene from a modern-day Jockeys Room:  A distinguished looking gentleman steps in, an hour before race time. By his neatly-pressed suit and his hat, some would venture he’s a Race Club Steward assigned with day duties in this private chamber. Maybe he’s the Paddock Master. His tie is perfectly knotted, a handkerchief protrudes from his top pocket and his shoes are well polished. But reflecting from their shiny tips is his sports bag, packed with riding kit and a crop. He nods at several younger faces around the room and they return respectful gestures or verbal recognition. The young lads would love to look into the mind of the old master. What makes him tick after all these years? What brings the determined focus that shows in his eyes, week after week?

It is hard to raise this image, because most jockeys of today will frown and probably burst out laughing if one of their colleagues happened to arrive at the race track over-dressed, or if they dared to appear too serious.

In the world of thoroughbred racing, personal pride and thorough professionalism are two sides of the same coin. Only a handful still observe racing as a sport steeped in nobility.

The last paragraph in a remarkable piece of racing history was written when former jockey and trainer Stanley Amos died in Cape Town last week, aged 87. (January 2006).

Passing with the gentleman of jockeys, who rode competitively until he was 65, were some of the rare customs which have gone missing in the South African jockeys’ ranks over the last two decades. The virtuous principles of Master Amos exist no more.

This week J&B sponsors the Cape’s biggest race. They remind us in their media campaigns that their product is true and rare. It is fitting, therefore, that we pay tribute to a true icon among jockeys. Here was a man who devoted 75 years of his life to horseracing. He led by disciplined example. We dare not forget him!

Owing to his almost stately character, his honesty, his work ethic and not least of all his tremendous riding skills, Stanley Amos was known, throughout his career, as ‘Mr. Amos’.

Cape-based trainer Billy Prestage, whose late father Bob trained a string of horses at Milnerton and who met Amos at their stables as a youngster, relates: “The title ‘Mr. Amos’ was something that came naturally to everyone who got to know this wonderful man. Twenty-five years after I met him I introduced him to my wife, who, as time went by, affectionately started calling him by his first name. I never even considered taking that liberty myself!”

Prestage adds: “He was the ultimate professional, being totally committed and above board in everything he did, not only as a jockey, but also as a private individual. To the day of his death he had everything perfectly in order. He conducted himself with orderliness and discipline as a human being and as a rider.”

Amos was born on 1 October 1918, the youngest of nine children. Three of his brothers were involved in horseracing. Archie, the first as a jockey, was followed by ‘Cookie’, Stanley and ‘Boet’.

Stanley rode in his first race at the age of 12, in 1930. He joined the stable of top trainer Syd Garrett in 1935 and won his first Metropolitan Stakes at the tender age of 18 on the back of Moonlit, a horse he always rated the best he had ridden.

In 1987, Amos was quoted in Thoroughbred News, saying:
“I rode plenty of good horses in my career as a jockey. The English horse Ranjit who, as a two-year-old, tested Petition and won seven Top division races here before becoming champion sire twice. The French horse Asbestos, who won the Met and was pipped on the post in the July before being champion sire five times.

“Then there was the English horse Fairthorn who annihilated a very strong Top Division field at Greyville at his only South African start. He was champion sire five times. I rode Black Cap, Jerez, Renounce, Majorca, Sympathetic, King’s Pact, Feltos, Prince Florimund and many others.”

“None of them or any other horse I’ve ever seen would have lived with Moonlit. He was the greatest of them all. He was a big, strong, majestic bay horse – extremely intelligent and full of character. He knew that he was the best. After winning a race he would come home to Roamer Lodge and as he entered the yard all the boys would shout ‘Nkosi!’ With that he would rear up and walk into the yard on his hind legs as if to say ‘Yes, I know I’m the King!’

“When I beat Moonlit on stable companion Asbestos in the 1937 Metropolitan I was receiving 32lb. My horse was fully extended and lucky to win by 0,50 lengths after Cookie got boxed in on Moonlit. After this Asbestos was very unlucky to be beaten a head in the July. He was a very good horse, but not within two stone of Moonlit.”

After a highly successful career with Garrett, Amos joined Cookie, who had suffered weight problems and hung up his riding boots prematurely to become a trainer. This partnership yielded success, most notably via the exploits of star filly Renounce, whose victories included the Cape Fillies Guineas and the Paddock Stakes.

Former trainer Brian de Villiers, who was apprenticed as a jockey to Cookie Amos at the time Stanley was his stable jockey, recalls: “Stanley would be the first to arrive at the training track in the morning and he’d be the last to leave. He rode for the big stables and the small ones. He helped everyone who needed a hand.

“He would go home after the morning gallops, exercise for a while – I know he liked skipping – before having a small lunch, and he’d be back at the stables by 3pm. He took an interest in all aspects of his brother’s racing stable. He would walk around Cookie’s barn for hours helping to take care of the horses.”

Over the years Stanley won almost every big race in the country at least once, including the 1941 Durban July Handicap on Sadri II, six Mets, (including Moonlit, Feltos and Royal Chaplain twice), two Cape Guineas, two Gold Cups, three Queen’s Plates and the Cape Derby six times.

One of his fondest memories was being introduced to the Royal Family, who had in their ranks a then 20-year-old Queen Elizabeth. Their meeting happened after he had won the Derby aboard Menlo.

As a jockey, in his prime, Amos had no equals and Prestage comments: “He was a superb judge of pace and won hundreds of races dictating the gallop from the front. He was especially effective when riding over 1400m on the old Milnerton racecourse.

“He outwitted his rivals so many times over this course and distance it became almost funny. When he made his move in the middle of the bend before the home straight, it would often be a case of ‘race over’! He was strong and balanced and could ride them from off the pace too. He had a huge following among horseplayers.”

Amos followed a strict diet and never experienced problems with his weight. When he retired in 1983, just over a year after winning the JW Langerman Handicap on the talented colt Prince Florimund, he could comfortably weigh out at 51kg when several apprentices and jockeys of more than half his age battled to ride at 54kg.

Despite spending most of his career in Cape Town – where they staged only seven races per day, once a week – Amos rode 2507 winners, bettering the previous record of 2455 winners that was held at the time by the superb Harold “Tiger” Wright.

Amos’ record tally was surpassed in 1988, four years after his retirement from race riding, by the peerless Michael Roberts. (See bonus Chapter, page 91).

Amos took out a trainer’s licence and tried his hand at training but, as Billy Prestage points out: “Mr. Amos may have left it too late to become a trainer. He started with only a few horses and there were no good ones among them. But he remained committed to the sport and he was impeccable in his stable management.”

In his last few years Amos didn’t attend many race meetings. He enjoyed his home life, loved his family and his dogs. He was a caring and devoted son who looked after his mother until she died at age 84, also a loving and much-loved father and grandfather.

Stanley Amos left his wife Thelma, daughter Frith, two granddaughters, and a legacy that commands admiration. – (January 2006).

-From Legends Of The Turf, Volume 1 (Createspace: 2011), by Charl Pretorius. Click here for more.