Happy Days. Summerhill’s Micky Goss, Graham Beck, Cheryl Goss and another legend, the late Laurie Jaffee seen at a party in Dubai some years ago.
Horseracing is to honour one of its great owners and benefactors of recent times. The Gr2 Sceptre Stakes is to commemorate the memory of Graham Beck through a kind sponsorship by his wife, Rhona and her son Antony.
The Grade 2 Sceptre Stakes and two Listed races at Kenilworth on 19 January will be sponsored by the Beck family.
The Graham Beck Memorial Day will honour Beck – an entrepreneur, coal-mining mogul, philanthropist, horseracing fan, vintner and noted breeder of top horses from Highlands Stud in Cape Town and Gainesway Farm in Kentucky where Horse Chestnut started his stallion career. Beck died in July 2010 aged 80.
As reported on Moneyweb, Beck was one of the last of South Africa’s rough and tough mining entrepreneurs. A self-made billionaire Graham Beck was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer two months prior to his passing.
A Capetonian by birth and education (B Comm at UCT), Beck is best known internationally for the high quality wines which carry his name. Produced at Robertson and Franschoek in the Western Cape, the wines are consumed in fine company everywhere in the world. Particularly the flagship Graham Beck Brut NV which was used as the celebratory tipple for former President Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inauguration and by US President Barack Obama for his private celebration when he became the US’s 44th President on 4 November 2008.
But Beck’s wine interests and his huge investments in the other passion of a long life, thoroughbred horses, only came after the private billionaire had established his fortune. That came from his coal mining operation, the Kangra Group, born from a pioneering spirit which saw him acquire mines in KZN and initiate the export of their product through Richard’s Bay.
Beck’s billionaire status was publicly confirmed in December 2006 when he banked R1.08bn through the sale of his 60% in the coal operation to Spain’s number three power group, Fenosa. He remained a close friend of fellow golf enthusiast and former political heavyweight Cyril Ramaphosa whose Shanduka was introduced as Kangra’s Empowerment partner in 2002.
Top-Class! Covenant wins the 2012 Gr2 Sceptre under Karl Neisius.
Apart from his wine farms, Beck also owned South Africa’s leading thoroughbred breeding farm Highlands and a property development company in Israel. He and his wife Rhona had been married for fifty years at the time of his death. His son Antony Beck, owns and runs the famous Gainesway Stud Farm in America’s thoroughbred capital, Kentucky.
Beck was granted his famous brown, white V bib and white cap colours in 1973 and owned and bred many champions and reportedly once described racing as “the only game in town’’. He twice won South Africa’s most famous race, the Durban July, with Bush Telegraph, who he co-owned with Laurie and Jean Jaffee, and more recently with the talented grey Dancer’s Daughter, who epically dead-heated with Pocket Power in 2008. He also owned or co-owned horses like Secret Service, Zatopek, Dambuster, Arctic Cove, Diorissimo, Hawkins, Ton-Up, The Rutland Arms, National Currency, Zooming Zellie and Overarching,
Beck’s passion for horseracing saw him serve as a steward of the Benoni Turf Club and later vice-chairman of the Germiston Sporting Club.
The Sceptre Stakes was run in memory of Beck this year and was won by the Mike Bass-trained Covenant.
The Graham Beck Memorial Sceptre Stakes (Grade 2) over 1200m will be run on the same day as the Graham Beck Sun Classique Handicap (Listed) over 2400m and the Graham Beck Jamaica Handicap (Listed) over 1700m.
The Graham Beck Memorial Sceptre Stakes also forms part of the Fillies and Mares Sprint Series to be held at Kenilworth during our Cape Summer Season.
1st Race Southern Cross Stakes (Grade 2) over 1000m
8 December 2012
2nd Race Laisserfaire Stakes (Listed) over 1100m sponsored by Plattner Racing
29 December 2012
3rd Race Graham Beck Memorial Sceptre Stakes (Grade 2) over 1200m
19 January 2013
