Aidan Lithgow
Everyone knows the old saying that ‘history repeats itself’. However I only recently stumbled across the tail end to the saying which reads “it has to, because no-one listens!” Racing folk are naturally predisposed to being history students – we study genetics, we study horses and we study form. We study results and try to make sense of cause and effect in order to sift for the fine clues and pointers to guide us in the right direction going forward.
Someone who has become a master at prospecting for historical gold is Aidan Lithgow. The son of media personality Jimmy Lithgow and wife Elaine (a daughter of Les Rathbone and a successful trainer in her own right), Aidan has devoted the past four years of his life to his pet project “Legends Of The Turf”.
About Aidan
Sea Cottage
Aidan grew up in a racing family and unlike most children who are soothed to sleep with the tales of Beatrix Potter, Aidan’s grandfather used to recount stories of the racing greats of yesteryear and in his dreams, the likes of William Penn, Politician and Yataghan galloped across the turf again.
“Like any racing fan, I was always in love with Thoroughbreds and with champion horses in particular. I used to buy all the July posters and cut out the pictures and put them in books and on my walls. Flaming Rock was probably my favourite as a boy. I had a fascination for Sea Cottage after my grandfather told me the story.”
“I have a degree in film and am a professional film maker by trade, so I’m always looking for stories. I’ve always wanted to make a film about Sea Cottage and have done a lot of research. That’s really how this project got started.”
You Be The Judge
One of our great middle distance horses – David Payne leads In Full Flight with Fernando Toro in the saddle
“Back in 2009 I was producing a show for Tellytrack called You Be The Judge. It was a talk show in which we tried to cover a topical or controversial issue each week. Things started getting a little contentious and after a number of our guests ended up getting unwelcome criticism, it started becoming difficult finding people who were willing to appear on the show. As we were approaching Christmas, we tried a slightly different approach and decided to pose the question ‘who was South Africa’s greatest middle distance horse?’. We picked 20 horses and then selected a panel of experts including Colin Buckham, Charles Faull, Garth Puller and Alec Laird to debate the matter and it was one of the most popular episodes we ever produced.”
“For each show I would do a little 5 minute insert as a little introduction. However, when I started working on the intro for this programme, I found that it was impossible to do in 5 minutes, and so it developed into a 40 minute show on some of the greats of the South African turf. It was a very rudimentary attempt as I didn’t have enough time or resources at my disposal, but on the strength of the response we received, I decided ‘why not try and do this properly?’ So I came up with the idea of creating a series of documentaries of our great horses as a tribute to the past as well as something that could be used as a marketing tool for the future.”
Born in 2010
Colorado King – Heroes of old are a wonderful marketing tool
“In 2010 I started approaching the various racing entities, and the TBA showed an immediate interest. Adv Altus Joubert was the Chairman at the time and he also has an avid interest in history and provenance. Like me, he also felt that our great champions of the past play a vital role in our future, simply by creating the dream and the desire for people to want to own a horse like them one day. We thought it would be a wonderful marketing tool for the breeding industry as well as racing as a whole.”
“The original idea was to do a series of 5-10 minute vignettes titled “Legends Of The Turf”, but once we started shooting, we quickly realised that the stories were far bigger and more complex than we’d ever be able to do in such a small timeframe. When horses are in training, owners and trainers tend to play their cards very close to their chest, but once those horses (and in some case some of the people involved) are no longer around, people more prepared to tell you the full story. It quickly became apparent that the goings on behind the scenes were every bit as interesting and important, if not more so, than the careers and race records of the horses we were focussing on and so the scope of the project slowly expanded.”
Mammoth task
Solly Joel
“We ended up with 300 hours unedited interview material and then spent lots of time in the editing suite and realised that our initial budget wouldn’t come close. We also realised that the history before 1960 was also incredibly interesting and that it had never been told before. That period includes characters like Sir Abe Bailey, Solly Joel and Charles Southey and really explains how the South African Thoroughbred and the local racing industry had evolved, because that part of history is equally fascinating.”
“It’s been mammoth task and we’ve spent huge amounts of time on research, in various local archives, going through people’s personal collections, libraries, photographs and the national film archives. We discovered African Mirror racing archives from 1900 and extracting those that was a process in itself. It all had to be transcoded from the old cinema reels and converted into a digital format before we could use any of it. But we found a treasure trove of material that no-one had ever seen before. There was no TV in those days, so the old news reels were only ever shown on a one-off basis in movie cinemas as news briefs.”
African Mirror newsreels dating back to 1918
“And so the early history emerged as a separate project and a prelude to Legends and that turned into a bit of a monster that also grew out of all proportions. In order to tell the full story, one has to collect all the information and then trim it down to just the nuts and bolts. Well, even just down to the nuts and bolts, we still had an hour and a half documentary!”
“Budget has been an on-going problem and the project has been rather stop start as we get funding, work like mad and then run out of money and start the cycle all over again. There have also been additional logistical complications such as having to ensure that everything is compatible with high definition. No project gets off the ground without an awful lot of support from an awful lot of people, so at this point I need to say a huge thank you to the TBA and Altus Joubert who got the ball rolling, to Graeme Hawkins and Gold Circle and to Mary and Jessica Slack in particular, as they have been incredible and supported us every step of the way.”
Evolution
Glolite at stud in the Western Cape
“It has been an incredible journey and we’ve been blown away by the help we’ve received. We’ve met wonderful people and visited incredible places – we found old bellows at Kersefontein and went into rooms at Grootfontein that no-one’s been in for decades. We visited the Norse studs and Dwarsvlei –spooky stuff. People have lent us personal collections and given up hours of their time to talk to us and recount memories. It was a privilege to watch people light up and come alive with emotion as they relived the past. It was incredibly emotional in places and we had David Payne choked up talking about In Full Flight.”
“It has been a tough process and we’re aware that a lot of people have been waiting for it, so I’d like to take the opportunity to tell everyone that the ball has not been dropped. There have just been a few delays while we’ve restructured and refinanced to try and make it as special and authentic as we feel it deserves.”
“Our initial 5 minute vignettes have evolved into fully-fledged 30 minute episodes – and in some cases, we’ve even had to split a story into two parts, but we are very happy with what we’ve got and more importantly, the fact that in its current version, the series is in the correct format for commercial TV which is potentially very exciting.”
“As such, we’ve tried to make the stories as accessible as possible and specifically chose the stories that hold universal appeal –we’ve got underdogs, champions, tragedies and rivalries – all the schematics to appeal to a broad audience. We’ve also tried our best not to overload it with unnecessary racing jargon, to make it as accessible to non-racing folk as it is to racing fans.”
“Basically we’ve tried to make it something that everyone can enjoy. We’ve tried to create the world of racing that only racing people know and bring it to the homes of non-racing people. We hope to show a little of the magic and try and get the non-initiated interested in our world, and hopefully bring them to the races or to the sales to come and find out for themselves what it’s all about.”
How you can help
Fancy owning In Full Flight for a day? Well if you resemble this man, you can!
“We’re 3 years in to the project now and have some fantastic stories created from stock footage, narrators and first-hand accounts and now we’re into the realm of recreations to complete the last few missing pieces. We need a bit of help with this and are really hoping that the racing public will help us out.”
“At the end of October, we’re planning an intensive 3 week stint of film-making in Johannesburg. We’re really in the realm of film-making with actors, stunt-doubles, vintage cars, etc. It will be proper ‘lights, camera, action’ stuff. It all needs to be shot in period as the stories range from the 1920’s to the 1980’s. We are desperate for background extras and are appealing for 50 people to come and help us out. We’re looking for 3 or 4 jockeys and also have a cast list of characters that we’re trying to match, so if anyone is keen to be immortalised and help bring the racing characters of old back to life again, please please get in touch with me as soon as possible. Budget is still a major headache, so we can’t offer to make anyone rich, but we do promise a lot of fun. We’re also appealing for props and period equipment – any period clothing, saddles or equipment – helmets, breeches, boots that anyone might have lying around. We want to keep things as authentic as possible. We promise that any equipment will be looked after and returned in the same state as we received it.”
“And we’re also appealing for equine doubles, so if anyone has an In Full Flight, Sea Cottage, Gatecrasher, Renounce, Bold Tropic or Archangel double, we’d love to hear from you.”
“Once the shooting has wrapped up, we’ll resume editing in November and once that’s complete, we’ll do the final sound design and packaging.”
“If anyone would like to get involved, please contact us via our Facebook page (Legends Of The Turf), email me at [email protected] / [email protected] or by phone on 083 228 0791.”
