Luthando Bara’s grandfather Philemon Bara’s evangelistic journeys were mainly on horseback, which helped him criss-cross the hills and valleys of the former Transkei region while preaching the gospel.
Bara senior was a renowned evangelist with the Dutch Reformed Church and his labour is widely recorded in and around Port St Johns.
Later, while his grandfather was busy with pastoral care, and his father away teaching, Bara would, together with his three brothers, participate in makeshift traditional horse races for recreation over weekends and school holidays.
Bara’s brother Thobile, who is now a magistrate in Gqeberha, waxes lyrical about the names of their horses in those days — Basopa - Thobile’s favourite, Charles - Bara’s favourite, as well as Dick, Guns, Sunlight, Nzimande — and the craziness of youth whiling away time.
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Such is the relationship between horses and the men in the Bara family that on his umphumo (return from the bush) Baca gifted his son Salusa with a horse named Spano.
For more than 200 years, traditional horse racing has been diffused into the Xhosa culture and Bara, as a modernising force and intrepid entrepreneur, was deliberate with his intention to monetise and curate the annual Berlin November traditional horse race.
This has become a premier brand that usefully weaves an emphasis on cultural heritage and the practical connection between culture, identity and image.
Now in its 10th year, the weekend’s memorable event saw revellers and fahionistas interact through themed dress-up under a marquee village which is created each year from a barren parcel of land in Berlin, into a horse racing arena and lifestyle extravaganza that has become an iconic tourism event in the region. .
Bara hails from the small village of Nqadu, near Port St Johns, and his upbringing led him to dream beyond the Wild Coast’s majestic mountains and village life.
He developed a mental toughness to survive an environment of risk, uncertainty and despair.
His ability to withstand these allowed for him to break through in business and life and to use a new avenue of sports tourism.
This converts the cultural sport of traditional horse racing into a celebrated event which spurs economic development in the region.
Prof Susan Swart, author of Riding high — horses, humans and history in SA ,explains that horse racing is political in SA.
Race and racing were entangled, shaped from the mid-20th century by increasingly rigid apartheid legislation, which expressly outlawed black participation in the racing industry.
Furthermore, she points out that the “history of horse racing as a whole is usually told in triumphalist and Whiggish terms of a glorious sport increasingly professionalised — and usually only features white actors”.
While there might be a snail’s pace in the transformation of the equestrian industry, young black actors like Bara are propelling traditional horse racing to new heights and bringing about much-needed value as they do so.
The problem is that as Bara takes leaps in the industry, they often have to nudge and coax the government to see the value proposition presented by the sports and how it can turn around the economic fortunes not only of Buffalo City but the province at large.
The Berlin November presents a new window to economic activity rather than a mere extreme sport.
One result of the annual race came about as a result of Philasande Mxoli’s back-to back wins at the Berlin November 2017/2018 races, aboard “Remember” and “Final Judgment”, respectively, trained by Lopez Magongo.
Magongo then nudged Mxoli to enrol at the South African Jockey Academy in Durban.
Mxoli’s fast and frantic display of horsemanship was quite respectable and he is now a professional jockey.
Historically, traditional horse racing was seen as something performed at family gatherings but Bara positioned it as a sports tourism activity drawing sponsors from both the public and private sector.
He infused it with prestige and elegance along the way, to the extent that the Eastern Cape Tourism Agency could not help but sanction Berlin November as a signature event.
I came across a poster of “The Native Race”, September 9 1922, at a so-named “Deleza Racecourse”.
It is said that one of the first sponsors of traditional horse racing was an Irish trader — LP Moore, in Qumbu. The Bajodina race in Qumbu turned 100 in 2021.
Horse racing is one of the fastest developing sports in the province and there has been a marked uptick in the number of events being held since the second half of the 19th century when the term mdyarho was used to describe a horse race, when the amaXhosa raced against their white counterparts.
Most horsekeepers learnt the skills needed to train and race horses informally, through emulation, by word of mouth or even trial and error.
As Dr Craig Paterson points out in his essay, “Notes on the Origin of ‘the Chase’: Artefacts of an Indigenous Racing Tradition in Transkei”, “African horsemanship was acquired, either directly or indirectly, through observation and adaptation of the European settler ‘horse culture’.”
What could be added is that unless they were kinsmen, some of these skills — including the welfare of the horses — remain closely guarded family secrets.
But it is clear and common among the Xhosa horsekeepers, the horse remains a symbol of status, family pride and success.
When I met Paterson, who is also the author of the research report on The status of traditional horse racing in the Eastern Cape, and Swart, who is an academic at Stellenbosch as well as the author of several books, they both agreed that traditional horse racing needed to move away from the narrow apartheid views of it being “bush racing”.
There needs to be an acceptance that horses have diffused into the cultural fabric of African people in Southern Africa.
The sport of traditional horse racing needs visionary leadership in government and the private sector to investigate ways for locals to earn an income from the supply of equine-based labour, goods or services.
A much-needed investment in the industry could see homesteads become stud estates and professionally-run stables.
And champion trainers such as Magongo and George Gibson could proliferate, as could farriers, who deal with illnesses and injuries, and blacksmiths, who shod the hooves, and dealers and merchants, as well as manufacturers of tack and riding-gear and ancillary tradesmen.
There is an entire equine economy that exists — for now ruralitarians are forging ahead with little or no assistance from the government.
Local municipalities are more focused on sponsoring races than building racecourses like the one built by the late Mthetheleli Ngumbela in Dutywa.
It is time local government, economic agencies and the Eastern Cape Development Corporation, department of public works, co-ordinated by the department of economic development, come together to develop a blueprint to take this sports tourism property to another level.
• Vukile Pokwana is a creative writer, television producer and creative industries consultant. Recently he became the recipient of the inaugural Isakhono Award: Research and Writing organised by the Nelson Mandela Bay Theatre Complex. A recipient of a Lifetime Achievement award from DAC for his contribution to South African music.
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