Trainer Profile: Ricky Maingard

Ricky Maingard is closing in on 50 years as an owner-trainer, which in itself is an extraordinary testimony to his longevity in what is one of the toughest sporting professions to be found anywhere. If there was indeed a T-shirt handed out to those who have “been there and done that”, the Mauritius-born horseman would have a few wardrobes’ full.

More than most, he understands that nothing can be taken for granted. Sure, there are highs, but inevitably there are lows. It’s how you scale the peaks, and slog through the valleys which ultimately leads to how you stay in racing.

Right now, although this could well change in a flash, the straight-talking veteran is navigating another of those tougher parts of the journey.

It’s the last race meeting of March and he has four runners heading off to Hollywoodbets Durbanville, where one of them, Pinot Grigio, was being ridden by Richard Fourie. It’s only the third time Fourie is doing duty for Maingard this 2024/25 season, and yet the pair already won with Street Outlaw. Last season, in Fourie’s record-breaking “378” season, they teamed up with one winner from only four rides – Winter Pearl.

“Richard is a brilliant rider, I don’t need to tell anyone that. I’ve known him from back in Mauritius when he rode for me there. But, being able to book him for a ride isn’t easy because he has so many plums to choose from. I’m just a small stable and the top four of five jockeys in the Cape have so many choices from the bigger yards.”

Maingard has long come to terms with referring to himself as “a small yard”. A man who famously trained the great Wolf Power, won a slew of Gr 1s and the 1994  Hollywoodbets Durban July with Space Walk, he is now out of the limelight, a string of 28 horses being cared for under his expert eye and watchful care of his training staff at his Milnerton base.

He’s in his third full season since relocating from Mauritius for this next chapter of his training life, one which he says will be his last. “I’m not going back to Mauritius. But, but the same token I’m not going to retire, no matter how tough things might get. What would I do at home? I’d drive my wife crazy!”

Maingard is refreshingly forthright. “I have been around long enough to tell it like it is. Things are tough and I’ve had a rotten season. I had 33 horses and have now reduced to 28, eight of them being unraced two-year-olds, so the hope is always there. And the reality is that if those unraced youngsters didn’t have any ability I wouldn’t have them in my yard.”

In these two-and-a-half seasons that Maingard has been back in business in Cape Town, he’s had 13 winners in the region. One of them came in the 2022/23 season, six in 2023/24 and six so far in 2024/25. The graph is on an upward trajectory.

“I wish it was that simple,” he says. “I’ve had a poor season. I’ve had a virus and it affected all my horses and it’s one that the vets have struggled to get to grips with. There have been some horses which I’ve fancied but they have run well below expectations. Some have bled, a result of the virus, and it has particularly affected my three-year-olds. With such a small yard it’s difficult to quickly overcome that kind of setback.

“And trying to build up the yard with quality isn’t easy. It’s been wonderful what has happened to Cape Racing. Greg Bortz and Hollywoodbets have thrown a lifeline to the sport and we all need to be grateful for that. But, with the quality of horse coming in from the breeders and the big prices being paid at the Sales, a small trainer like me doesn’t find it easy. The big fetchers are likely to go to the big yards.

“With a small yard I don’t have the liberty of being able to nominate a handful of horses for a race and then let the draw determine things. I have to take my chances. Tomorrow for instance, I have Hunga Tonga in an Open Maiden at HWB Durbanville. Ordinarily, I’d give her a bright chance, but she’s drawn in the bush, at 13 in a field of 14, over 1400m.” Hunga Tonga went on to finish second, at odds of 66-1.

Maingard will keep trying, looking to find a champion at the Sales and then sprinkle his own stardust in building its career. “I’m still enthusiastic and I still love the sport. I’m going nowhere!”

He does point to how tough it is to break through in the Cape. “The big yards are so established and have so many horses and such quality. You’ve seen some other trainers come down to the Cape and try their hand and they’ve found things hard. The standard in the region is so high and it probably looks easier for someone to say ‘let me set up a base in the Cape’ and then to actually discover how hard it is.”

However, racing being racing, Maingard is ever the realist. “Look, we have seen often enough that there are champions out there who are missed by the more resourced owners and stables at sales’. And that’s what all of us smaller trainers strive for.”

The reality is that the next winner Maingard has will nudge his season tally up to seven, which will be one more than last season and six more than 2022/23. That’s when he had just the one winner – although it happened to be Al Muthana in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate.

The seven-year-old has been retired, but it was the latest Gr 1 on a career CV that can be compared favourably with anyone’s. ”Al Muthana lost his fighting spirit and we decided to retire him. We found him a very good home where he can go to the beach at Noordhoek and enjoy his well-earned retirement. You know, he was still looking so well and working well. Before he ran in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate and the World Sports Betting Cape Town Met we actually thought he would run a good race and he went down to the start giving the jockey such a nice feel. But he just didn’t put it in and had lost the fight. Which is why it was a good decision to retire him.”

That “R” word though is still far from Maingard’s mind. He knows that after every storm in racing comes those cloudless days where the sun shines. For someone who has been five decades in the sport he understands that things change. He’s prepared to wait out what is a tough period – but he will be back to sprinkle more of that Maingard Magic.

By Gary Lemke