See home page for the official unveiling of memorial.
THE night of 12 April 1988 is a night nobody in racing will forget. It is the night that a Dakota carrying 24 people, 21 directly involved in racing, caught fire and crashed on its way back from Bloemfontein.
Thirteen jockeys - Warren Bailie, Keith Basel (brother to Racing Association chief executive Clyde Basel), Michael Coetzee, Bennie de Wet, "Rooies" Fourie, Greg Holme, Danny Lombard, John McMurtry, Mark Nel, Simon Rahilly, Lawrence Riley, Dougie Roper and Gordon Sterley - trainer Hennie van Wyk, owners Nick Blignaut and Jacobus Viljoen and five racing officials - Dave Bullock, Arthur Havergal, Graham Kent, Ginger Masterton and Johan van der Linden - as well as the pilot and two crew members - Jacob Kalt, Harold Whitehead and Jaqueline Henderson - were killed in the disaster.
A memorial for the people lost in the Hennenman air disaster, donated by Hilda Podlas and Emanuel Cambouris, was built at Newmarket and when the Alberton racecourse closed down, many people in racing believed the memorial had been lost, too.
However, the Racing Association rescued it and has reloacated the poignant statue to its new home at Turffontein. On Saturday, when the raceday to commemorate the disaster was held, the Hennenman Memorial was officially unveiled by RA chairman Larry Wainstein at a touching ceremony attended by some of the folk who lost loved ones in the disaster.
In the Hennenman Memorial Pinnacle Stakes over 1600m, hot favourite Buy And Sell looked home and hosed when he took command at the 600m marker, but he stopped to nothing in the closing stages, allowing Therealslimshady to make up five lengths' leeway and catch him just short of the line.
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