Enos Mafokate

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Enos Mafokate (* 1946 in Alexandra , Johannesburg ) is a South African show jumper and founder of a riding school. He was best known as the first black South African show jumper to take part in international competitions.

Life and sports career

Born in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, Mafokate lived with his parents in the countryside in Rivonia as a child , where he worked as a stable boy on a farm and thus began to like horses. The white owner of the farm taught him to ride a horse.

In 1962 he worked as a stable boy for professional show jumpers. His first chance for competitive show jumping came when his employers decided to let the black stable lads compete against each other. Mafokate's first competitions only took place against other blacks as he was not allowed to compete against whites.

In 1964 his career as a show jumper ended for the time being due to political problems, but from 1975 he was able to attend the Marist Brothers College, a school for show jumpers, which accepted 17 black stable boys, including him. Because he won many competitions, he gained recognition and was henceforth called black rider (black rider) and no longer groom (stable boy ). His international career began in 1980 when he was discovered by a British rider, David Broome . He competed in the UK . In 1992, South Africa was allowed to take part in the Olympic Games for the first time since 1960, after it was previously suspended due to apartheid . Mafokate took part in the games in the role of a sports ambassador.

In 2007 he founded the Soweto Equestrian Foundation (SEF), a non-profit riding school that pursues the goal of improving the life of the carriage horses in Soweto and opening up the elite world of riders to people who would otherwise never get the chance and who are disabled Teaching children to ride. In order to implement these goals, the students of the riding school only have to pay a symbolic membership fee, for example.

Enos Mafokate has six children, including the musician Arthur Mafokate .

Success as a rider

  • 1976: Second in the Rothmans Derby, Sandton
  • 1977, 1978: Winner of the competitions at the Constantia Show Grounds in Cape Town
  • 1992: Winner of the Rothmans Derby

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Soweto Equestrian Center - Enos Mafokate ( English ) . Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b The Soweto Equestrian Center - About Us ( English ) . Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  3. ↑ Article of Horse and Country on Mafokate ( English ) . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  4. ↑ Soweto's Horse Whisperer - Article of the World on Sunday from September 1, 2013 . Retrieved September 13, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Mafokate, Enos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African show jumper
DATE OF BIRTH 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Alexandra , Johannesburg