Ormond Ferraris (90) the retired master trainer, has penned his autobiography in a 350-page book called ‘Thoroughly!’, with the assistance of racing writer and publisher, Charl Pretorius.
The book is due for release early in December and Pretorius told the Sporting Post:
“Mr Ferraris and I spent the best part of the last two years on this project. It required not only many hours of research, but digging into old and almost forgotten photo files. Some of the facts we needed were not readily available so we had to call on the help of Jay August and Natalie Bergh for the tracking down of facts and figures from the 1940s onwards. We’re dealing with a distinguished career of more than 70 years, so you can imagine how far we had to go back to retrieve the correct dates and information to match the actual events described. We covered a lot of ground. Everything you want to know is included, and dealt with in detail.
Rakeen pulls faces for the camera as Ormond Ferraris welcomes him
“We’re almost there, the book is in layout stage and Mr Ferraris will sign it off before we go to print. It’s been an enjoyable experience alongside a legend. Mr Ferraris has the memory of a teenager, he recalled various races, incidents, anecdotes (and fist fights!) almost down to the hour. We shared plenty of laughs too and he warmed to the challenge as memories started flowing back. We are very proud of what we’ve achieved here, it’s a book every racing enthusiast will want to read and if you were around in the racing’s ‘Golden Era’ (1960 -1990), you won’t put it down.”
Racing scribes Mark van Deventer and Andrew Harrison, and media entrepreneur and racing fan Alec Hogg have all had a peep at the pre-press draft and have been unanimous in their praise, Van Deventer describing it as “a cutting account of inspiring or deeply flawed characters… a valuable literary resource for future generations.”
Ormond Ferraris and his champion trainer son, David
‘Thoroughly!’ is being published by Pretorius’s Wordslingers Publishing Corporation.
Signed, pre-sale of a numbered, limited edition will be made available on order before it goes on Sale to the public, initially exclusively at Exclusive Books.
Pretorius in 2000 helped Mike de Kock to write and publish Horse Chestnut: The Story Of A Legend and, on his own, wrote The Ten Habits Of Highly Effective Horseplayers (2005), Legends Of The Turf Volume 1 (2010) and Legends Of The Turf Volume 2 (2014).
