OFF THE RECORD #34

Racing Legends: Sea Cottage's Incredible Legacy Lives On

Above:  Sea Cottage

During Durban July weekend, many members of our racing community will raise a toast to the legendary Sea Cottage, who won the great race in a dead-heat with Jollify in 1967. Sunday's Grade 3 Sea Cottage Stakes at Turffontein is named after this iconic horse, often hailed as South Africa's greatest Thoroughbred. Sea Cottage is woven into the very fabric of South African racing history, not only for his remarkable achievements but also for the rich folklore and enduring legacy he left behind.

The Sea Cottage story starts in the mid 1940s when a quiet, reserved young soldier named Sydney Charles Laird returned to his Cape Town home following his duties for the Allied Forces in Africa and Northern Italy in World War II. Syd was nick-named ‘Silent Syd’, because he hardly ever spoke about what had happened during his time as a tanker operator on the battlefronts. But there was one thing he did enjoy discussing: Horses. His father, Alexander, had won the 1911 Durban July on Nobleman and his uncle Syd Garrett was the top trainer at the era. Syd had his heart set on becoming a trainer himself.

Syd approached his uncle for a job, but Garrett, the consummate horseman, wanted him to complete a few years as a tradesman before joining the stable. This would allow him to gain experience as an apprentice and have a fallback option. Although the young man wasn’t mechanically inclined at all and couldn’t put a nut and bolt together, he did what was required, working as a fitter and turner before being allowed to work as an assistant trainer.

During his time with Garrett, Syd Laird grew fond of a top mare called Maritime, owned by the Birch Brothers. He expressed a wish to train one of her offspring, specifically a foal sired by the Birch’s top stallion, Fairthorn. Several years later, when Syd had established his own stable and trained for a few friends at Roamer Lodge in Milnerton, his wish was granted.

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Maritime’s foal by Fairthorn was born in 1962. He was a bay colt with a white blaze and The Birches named him Sea Cottage. He wasn’t much to look at - small and skinny with one hoof turning out. Despite this, Syd pleaded with the breeders to lease the colt to him for his racing career.

Syd hired a farrier to do corrective work on the hoof, which straightened out in time. Sea Cottage was put through his paces at Roamer Lodge, where the older gelding Java Head was the best horse in the yard. Sea Cottage was, in his trainer’s words, “an effeminate, light-framed horse who lacked substance’’, but he proved to be a thoroughbred of rare ability.

Sea Cottage won his Milnerton debut over 1000m on 12 December 1964, on Syd’s 41^st birthday, and over the next year chalked another seven successive wins, including the 1966 Queen’s Plate in a race record time. “He is docile and even-tempered, a bit straight in front, but with an unbelievable action and a devastating finish,’’ Syd told the press.

Above:  Sea Cottage in action

Approaching the Durban July of 1966, Sea Cottage was already hailed as a superstar having won 11 races, which by then also included the Cape Derby and the SA Guineas. He and Java Head were entered for the big race and in the run-up to the contest, Syd, his connections and the colt’s many fans started placing huge bets on Sea Cottage to win.

One Durban bookmaker, “Sonny” Chislett, stood to lose a living fortune if Sea Cottage won the race, scheduled for Saturday, 2 July 1966. Chislett ran his business from a cubicle in the Natal Tattersalls across the road from the Monaco Billiards Club in Field Street Durban. The club was owned by Monty Labuschagne, who offered snooker, pool and alcohol as a front for the illicit gambling activities that went on in Monaco’s back rooms. The club was frequented by the city’s best pool players and any number of ‘shady’ individuals including Labuschagne’s sidekick Johnny Nel, a scruffy, gun-wielding character who at times collected monies owed to his boss.

The late trainer Herman Brown Sr., who was at one time both Natal champion trainer and provincial snooker champion, and a regular at Monaco, told Gavin Foster in a 2014 interview for The Ridge Magazine: “The guys used to hang out there, playing snooker in the front and cards in the back. Chislett would go there often because it was convenient, while I’d be there for the snooker. Labuschagne owed Chislett a lot of money, and the bookmaker needed it because he saw big trouble looming.”

The promptly hatched a plan and Foster wrote in his article, ‘Gangsters, Guns and Smoke-filled Rooms’: “The bookie, the dodgy club owner and his sinister sidekick worked out a deal where Johnny Nel would shoot Sea Cottage, Chislett would save a fortune in pay-outs, and Labuschagne’s debt would disappear. Nel, the gunman, would earn R10,000 for his five-minute job.”

Herman Brown told: “Johnny was a real braggart who used to walk around with a gun on his belt. He was a sharp-shooter of repute. They said he could hit a fly off a wall, from a distance. He’d move his jacket aside so people could see it and there were lots of rumours about people he’d shot. He used to deliberately spread the stories because he wanted respect and liked it when people stared at him.”

On the early morning of 10 June, 1966, Nel, armed with a 7,65mm pistol, positioned himself at the rotunda close to the bridge at Blue Lagoon where Sea Cottage walked from the old Newmarket stables to the Durban beachfront. He waited for the easily recognisable star with his white blaze, picked an opportune moment, took aim and fired a single shot. Sea Cottage was hit in his off-side hindquarters.

Above:  Bullet wound

Herman Brown Jr., nine years old at the time, recalled: “My dad’s stables were next to Syd Laird’s barn. He heard what sounded like a car backfiring and people shouting, and they ran up to see what had happened. Trainer Eileen Bestel was first on the scene and was helping the horse to walk back to his stable. Later that afternoon, I went with my dad to visit Sea Cottage. I remember him standing with his back to me, and seeing the hole where the bullet went in. There was still some blood seeping from it, but the horse had been treated by the veterinarians and he looked calm.”

Nel made the mistake of driving away from the bridge in his own car, a bright yellow convertible. He was spotted by a morning fisherman, whose story was supported by various people, including Brown, who reported seeing Nel standing on the bridge with his two accomplices during the week before the shooting, watching Sea Cottage.

The police, supported by detectives, arrested Nel, Chislett and Labuschagne within hours of the shooting, the bookie and the club owner were later released due to insufficient evidence. Chislett, however, was expelled from the Tattersalls and lost his licence to work as a bookmaker. Nel was eventually sentenced to six years imprisonment, with half suspended.

Shock and consternation ensued and for days and the shooting of Sea Cottage made the headlines. Fortunately, Nel’s bullet had lodged so deep in his rump that it couldn’t be seen on X-rays and a veterinarian advised Syd Laird not to have it removed.

Initially lame, Sea Cottage after a few days showed no signs of discomfort. The wound had healed and he would prick his ears every time he was asked to canter. In due course he was back in full work and Laird said: “If he had put his ears back and looked uncomfortable, I would have scratched him, but he started working as well as ever and we decided to leave him in the race.’’

The brave Sea Cottage, ridden by Robbie Sivewright, put up a bold showing. He was bumped during the running of the race, yet still ran on to finish fourth behind Java Head, ridden by Johnny Cawcutt. Chislett and Labuschagne would quietly emerge as winners. Aside from ‘laying’ Sea Cottage (essentially betting on him to lose), they were said to have backed Java Head to win.

The fabulous bay atoned in 1967 in the hands of Sivewright, when 60 000 people came to Greyville and witnessed him dead-heating with light weight Jollify in a thrilling finish. After the race, an emotional Syd leapt onto Sea Cottage’s back to the cheers of the crowd. Sea Cottage won 20 of 24 starts and was named Horse Of The Year in 1965/6 and 1966/7. He was a national hero and remains the one thoroughbred by which all other South African horses since have been measured.

Above:  Sea Cottage on parade at Clairwood

Sea Cottage was retired to stud in 1967. He sired 15 stakes winners, jncluding Ocean City, Sea Mist, Impressive Style and Smugglers Den. He was second on the South African General Sires List in the 1973/74 season, and a top-tenner on the log, seven times. He was euthanised in 1987, at the age of 25, after suffering a stroke. Syd Birch reported: “At the post mortem they retrieved the bullet – it had moved around to the inside of his leg. We donated it to a fundraiser for a horse charity and it was bought, as I remember, by the Sivewright family.”

Sea Cottage was the first equine inductee into the South African Hall Of Fame in 2019, and Syd Laird was the first trainer to receive this honour. Laird still holds the record for the most Durban July wins. He won it no fewer than seven times in only 28 years of training.

Three years after the trial of Johnny Nel, Herman Brown (sr) had a surprise visitor late one night. Herman (jr), told: “It was Johnny. He had been released from prison and had nowhere to go. He knew my dad from their snooker days. He said Nel was scrawny and looked sick. He was crying like a baby. Nel said that he never intended to kill Sea Cottage. He aimed at a spot on his quarters where he knew the horse wouldn’t be hurt. He said that he never received the promised payment for the shooting. My dad, softy that he was, gave him a glass of brandy and helped him with R50. He died of cancer just a few months later.”