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The J&B Met 2007
Black and white bling was the theme for the 2007 J&B Met. The weird and wonderful people who make up the beautiful Cape Town were all there, strutting their stuff while maybe daring to place a bet. 5FM and Flat Stanley kept all entertained for the day.
This is a R2-million, Grade 1 horse race over 2000m that is the highlight of the annual summer fun and fashion festival that draws racing enthusiasts from all parts of Southern Africa and from overseas. Here, at the Kenilworth Race Course, they will experience the thrilling atmosphere of thundering hooves and head-turning outfits of the beautiful people who bask in the splendid sunshine under the grandiose Table Mountain.
Surely the biggest racing and fashion “parade†in the Western Cape, this programme of superior thoroughbred racing filled with glitz and glamour caters for around 50 000 people.
The J&B Met finds its roots in the later 1700’s, when Lord Charles Somerset governed the Cape and those in his battalion raced each other as a popular pastime in the area now known as Green Point common. A more suitable venue was designed to stage these races in the late 1800’s. 1883 marked the first official horse racing event at Kenilworth and the forerunner to the J&B Met. The star social attraction of the years to come arose: the Metropolitan Handicap. In 1978 J&B’s sponsorship commenced. The race-winner’s prize of R40 000 was a record for horse racing at the time. Enter onto the race scene a four-year-old colt, Politician. With Bertie Hayden in the saddle, Politician went on to become the only two-time winner of the event – winning by over three lengths in his first victory repeating the feat a year later in a spectacular comeback from behind. For 25 years since, horses and jockeys, trainers, haute couture and of course the race-attending public have contributed to the enjoyment of the J&B Met – enriching its history with every event.
For the Western Cape it is the social occasion of the year and, as the thoroughbreds battle it out on the turf, the thousands will line the track and scream their fancies home, then celebrate their success or failure in great party style right through into the night.
The favourite for 2007 was PocketPower, and after other delays and a rather serious injury, PocketPower did steal the day! The 2007 J&B Met was another huge success!