Racegoer writer Michael Clower won the Equus Print media award at the annual ceremony to honour the champions of South African racing in Johannesburg on Tuesday night and was a thoroughly deserving recipient.

Michael admitted to getting just “as much of a kick” out of writing about racing as he did when first starting in Kenya 48 years ago. “I just love going to the racing and talking to people and then writing, I always have.” His newspaper writing reflects his enthusiasm for the game and he always keeps readers well informed with behind the scene news which they would otherwise not be able to gather.

Punters are also always eager to see his headline horse for Cape Town meetings, as he fishes out best bet winners regularly, and his other tips for the day are invariably a good guide. His magazine writing has an entertaining style and at the end of a limited space article about a racing personality the reader will be left knowing not only a lot about the subject’s career but also a bit about their personality, outward demeanour and inner psyche as well as the forces which drive them.

Michael was born and brought up in England and qualified as a chartered accountant, but realised in the first fortnight of doing his Articles that he wasn’t suited to accountancy and would never enjoy it. However, his parents would not allow him to give it up – they were dead set against racing, having lived through the experience of Michael’s grandfather, who was a racehorse trainer, losing a lot of money on horses which Michael’s father often used to ride.

Michael was advised that South Africa was the place to go to practice accountancy. However, in his first job interview the interviewer suggested East Africa. “There was no difference to me, so I went to Kenya.”

In Kenya he owned a few racehorses which he used to ride in flat races. There were no rules disallowing amateurs to ride against professionals and through natural build and “a starvation diet and dehydration” he used to weigh in at 7 stone 11 (about 49kg). He recalled riding three winners in his first six rides and was then never able to get to the line in front again.

However, he jumped at the opportunity to write when the racing correspondent for the main newspaper departed. He then combined accountancy with race writing and recalled loving the latter so much that he couldn’t wait to get to the newsstand in the mornings to read his own articles.

Michael spent six years in East Africa before departing for Ireland in 1973. Kenya had been good to him in more ways than one because he also met his wife Tessa there.  She was working for the Jockey Club, having earlier trained and ridden racehorses in Singapore.

In Ireland he quickly picked up bits and pieces of race writing work and calculated he would be able to leave accountancy behind completely after another two years. However, that eventuality never happened because he was given the sack by his accountancy company, a fortuitous occurrence in the long run. He worked as the full time Irish correspondent for the Sporting Post for 15 years and later worked for both the Racing Post and the Sunday Times.

He wrote three books in his 33 years in Ireland, one about the 13-time Irish Champion Flat Jockey Mick Kinane, another about ten-time Irish National Hunt Champion jockey Charlie Swan and a third about the legendary Aiden O’Brien-trained hurdler Istabraq, who won the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle three-times in succession and the Irish Champion Hurdle four-times in succession (Istabraq was ridden by Swan in all 29 of his races and won 14 Gr 1 races).

There was a special on course presentation for Clower when he left Ireland and he was called “one of the legends of Irish racing” over the public address system, so those moments were one of the highlights of his career.

He had decided upon Cape Town because his wife said to him one day she had spent 30 years in the sun and 30 years in the rain and she would like to spend the last period of their lives back in the sun.

In Cape Town he started the magazine SA Bloodstock News in unison with a magazine company. However, when the company began downsizing the magazine he felt it was starting to give him a bad name, so he discontinued it.

A number of breeders as well as trainer Joey Ramsden then lobbied on his behalf to become editor of Parade Magazine, but after a meeting at Gold Circle it was decided he would write for rather than edit the magazine and that suited him fine due to his love for writing. Later Gold Circle Publishing manager Andrew Harrison asked him to become the Racegoer’s Cape Town newspaper correspondent and he jumped at it.

Michael’s Equus award was the first media award he had received in his long career and he counts it as another highlight. In Ireland there were no media awards, but he did go close in the “Naps Table” on a number of occasions. On one of these occasions he was 10 pounds clear before the final meeting, but the second placed writer tipped a 20-1 winner and he was pipped on the post. “I was devastated for about five minutes and then saw the funny side!”

Michael had made it on to the shortlist of the Equus Print Media Award on a number of occasions so wasn’t expecting much when departing Cape Town on Tuesday with Tessa’s  words of encouragement ringing in his ears. He had always dearly wanted to win it and was humbled by the many words and messages of congratulations he received after being called on to the stage.

His two winning submissions were a Parade Magazine article about the popular owner Marsh Shirtliff and a Monday Racegoer newspaper page with follow up stories about the big races on Vodacom Durban July day.

Michael will be writing his preview for Kenilworth’s Saturday meeting today. His invaluable guide for the meeting can be read tomorrow in the broadsheet morning newspaper’s Racegoer supplement.

By David Thiselton