The sad passing of one of the grand ladies of Cape racing on Christmas eve signals the end of yet another chapter in the colourful history of the sport of kings.
The news of the passing of Jean Cawcutt at the age of 84 on Monday morning came as a shock to many.
Affectionately known as Aunty Jean to those whose hearts and lives she had touched, Jean had been ill after suffering a stroke earlier this year and passed away peacefully at her home on the Cape West Coast.
The wife of the late seventeen times Cape Champion jockey, Johnny Cawcutt, who died at the age of 55 in 1989, Jean was a mother to five daughters – Cheryl, Roslyn, the late Terry, Diane and Mechele.
Diane de Kock is Jean’s only daughter directly involved in the sport today.
Jean was also a proud grandmother of eight, and a great grandma to five.
In a 2011 interview with the Sporting Post, Jean, a gracious lady with an amazing memory, told how, through her association with one of the great legends of the game, she had rubbed shoulders with stars and politicians and met the likes of the late heart pioneer, Dr Chris Barnard.
She had also warmed the bottles and changed the nappies of trainers Charles and Alec Laird and Dean Kannemeyer and his siblings.
But she always spoke most fondly of the evening sixty seven years ago when she first sat next to her future husband in the Grand Bioscope in Maitland.
Jean proudly showed us an engraved whip presented on the occasion of Johnny’s 1961 winning ride on Appeal Court, in the centenary year of the Queen’s Plate. Johnny was to ride three Queen’s Plate winners.
On her life as a jockey’s wife, Jean was always adamant that she would not change anything. She remembered the highs and the lows and all her husband’s major feature wins, and said that the Queen’s Plate then was very different to the ‘show’ of today.
Her daughter Diane told the Sporting Post that her dear Mom, whom she had visited regularly from her Johannesburg home, would be sorely missed by her entire family.