Trailblazing South Africa equestrian turns to new generation
JOHANNESBURG — A poised young black woman balances atop a white horse cantering around the ring, standing tall as she moves through several gymnastic poses.
When she dismounts, trainer Enos Mafokate says she will do well in an upcoming competition in horse vaulting, the sport in which riders perform gymnastics on horseback.
The respect displayed at Mafokate’s equestrian centre in Soweto is a far cry from the tensions under South Africa’s previous apartheid system of racial discrimination that erupted into violence more than 40 years ago Friday, when dozens of protesting black students were killed by security forces in the 1976 Soweto uprising.
Mafokate was raised under apartheid but became South Africa’s first black show jumper and one of the world’s top competitors in equestrian events.