How the Hatherley Hunt was named

Perhaps the reason why I never became a Springbok showjumper or international event rider has to do with my inauspicious start in competitive horsemanship. For I first competed on horseback in the early 1960s at a“ show” organised by the Donkerhoek Perdesport Vereeniging, held on a dusty race course set up behind the old Donkerhoek Hotel on the Bronkhorstspruit road east of Pretoria. There, the committee of the vereeniging decided, a“ toenadering” should be attempted between its“ boere” racehorse-owning members of Donkerhoek and the“ rooinekke” who rode English-style in the Willows nearby. In those days, nobody owned horseboxes in Pretoria so to get to and from shows one had to ride, in our case an hour ' s gentle hack down what is now Solomon Mahlangu Drive, but which in those days was a deserted gravel road( it hadn ' t even been named after Hans Strydom yet), and then along the Bronkhorstspruit road to the hotel. The show itself comprised a morning given over to English horse-pursuits such as showjumping and a gymkhana competition, all held on the sandy track in front of the hotel. Thereafter, the afternoon was devoted to races, in which a bunch of brandy-soaked retired and washed up jockeys in faded and patched silks flogged a bunch of emaciated thoroughbreds around the track in clouds of dust, while inside the hotel the bar did a roaring trade and an illegal tote added some financial interest to the proceeding. On the way to and from the show, unbeknown to us, we passed by a grand Victorian house, nestled in a forest of tall trees, the home, since the mid-1800s of the Marks family. The house was built by Sammy Marks, a Lithuanian Jew who arrived in Pretoria by way of England and Kimberley. He built his house with the proceeds of his activities as a mining magnate and merchant. Realising that Pretorians were a thirsty lot, he went into partnership with another immigrant from Eastern Europe, Alois Nellmapius, to build the first brewery, east of the town, at Eerste Fabrieken. The name survives as a station on the railway line in Mamelodi. Next, realising that he needed bottles for his brew he set up the Hatherley Glass & Bottle Manufacturing Co, named after a farm he had bought in the area. The Hatherley name survives on a graveyard in Mamelodi East. But there ' s an equestrian Hatherley connection as well. For in the 1960s the rooinekke of the Willows organised a drag-hunt, which ran in the full traditional manner, with a master, whippers-in, a stirrup cup beforehand and a lavish, if somewhat dusty, hunt breakfast afterwards. If I ' m to be accurate, I don ' t think the Hatherley Hunt ever owned its own pack. Rather, I recall, it borrowed hounds from Johannesburg ' s Rand Hunt for its meets. And the meets ran, as drag-hunts in South Africa must, over prepared ground in what is now the Silver Lakes estate. But how did the hunt come to bear a name associated with Marks ' bottling plant? Before the first meet, an enthusiastic young rooinek riding master was out surveying the terrain for a possible track for the hunt with a gaggle of overexcited teenage girl riders and an overweight Pretoria stockbroker with equestrian pretensions. Coming across an impressive donga the rooinek and his teenage hangers-on rode down, through, and up the other side a couple of times, before pausing on the edge of the donga to rest while the stockbroker took the slow way around. While resting, he regaled the girls with a couple of tales of derring-do from his youth, so implausible that they began singing“ how the hell can we believe you?” Just then the stockbroker arrived somewhat flushed, and his horse, spying a particularly green tuft of grass, put his head down to graze, resulting in the stockbroker taking a gentle tumble over the horse ' s head and falling“ plop” like an overfilled sack of spuds into the dust. Raising his head, he heard the girls singing in their flet preetorria eccents“ how the hell … etc” and he muttered, with all the grandeur that he could muster from his prone position“ Hatherley … Yes, that ' s a good name for the hunt. We ' ll call it the Hatherley Hunt.” And that is how the Hatherley Hunt got its name. ' Strue. I would not tell a lie.

WRITTEN BY SMALLHOLDERS, FOR SMALLHOLDERS