The Snaith July achievement – like all great success, decades in the making

By Alec Hogg

Watching the 1-2-3 of Team Snaith in Saturday's Durban July was a reminder that great achievement always follows years of planning and resilience. This is only the third time since South Africa's premier horserace was first run in 1897 that one trainer has saddled the first three – as legendary Terrance Millard did in 1986 and 1990.

The Snaith racing story began almost half a century ago when, at 22, patriarch Chris was licensed as the country's youngest racehorse trainer. A gifted horseman with a small yard, his charge Flaming Rock, a 14/1 outsider, won the July in 1991. Nine years later he eased into the background, handing over to 20-something racing-mad sons Justin and Jonathan.

After almost two decades of hard work and continuous innovation, the Cape Town-based Snaith brothers have overcome that geographical disadvantage to win their third July. With less than a month of the season left, they're also poised to land their second SA Trainer's Championship after triumphing in 2014.

Now in their late 30s, the Snaith brothers are poised to dominate local racing for years to come. And with the end finally in sight of a decades-long struggle to grant SA horses the right to compete globally, their next step will be taking locally-bred horses into the global arena. In that role, the country could hardly have better-qualified ambassadors.