A familiar voice to older Cape racegoers,  Hendrik Jacobus (Hennie) Pietersen has passed away at the age of 74 in Stellenbosch.
According to his former colleague and friend, Martin Locke, Pietersen suffered with blood circulation problems. He was diagnosed with cancer of the intestine, which eventually spread to the lungs.
Pietersen, who worked in years gone by for Gilbeys, was the original Afrikaans race-caller and also worked for the SABC for many years. He was a popular and well-known voice on Radio Good Hope, which played to a very different target market in those days. We recall the Saturday afternoons of the 1970’s when Driaan Engelbrecht in the Good Hope Sea Point studios would cross over by telephone to the track where the always energetic Pietersen would  do a mini Charles Fortune scene-set of Milnerton racecourse and the prevailing weather and crowd. Afrikaans horse-names were far more popular then than they are these days, and the likes of Kolskoot, Blommelied(AD Coetzer trained?) and So Ja, spring to mind.
While the charismatic Pietersen was rambling on air about the seeming inconsequentials then, the world waited anxiously and with bated breath on tenterhooks for him to announce the  all important result.  Everything was so final then. No emotional commentaries – just a number! Hennie Pietersen is survived by his wife Reita and stepdaughter, Urita. A memorial service was held in Stellenbosch on Monday, 9 July 2012.