MICHAEL Roberts, long since a legend in South Africa, had his first Group 1 winner as a trainer when 50/1 shot See It Again floored 1/5 hot pot Charles Dickens in the Splashout Cape Derby at Kenilworth last Saturday.

The shock winner, a son of the Juddmonte campaigned four-time Group 1 winner Twice Over out of a mare by American Grade 1 winner Visionaire, was handled with patience bordering on brilliance by six-time champion Piere Strydom, 56, who has been talking about retirement for years but seems to put it off whenever a fancied big race mount is presented to him.

But there was nothing fancied about this one. “Muis said to ride him for a place and we’ll hope for the win,” Strydom related. “I had Charles Dickens right in front of me but he started to labour near the end so I pulled mine out to try and get that extra effort.”

The winner was a length and a quarter in front on the line and became by far the longest-priced winner of the race this century as well as a long-awaited feather in the trainer’s cap.

“I’ve had some decent horses but I’ve had to wait a long time for a Group 1 winner,’ said Roberts, 68, who remains, the same friendly, cheerful man who made a point of going into the press room to say hello whenever he was riding at the Curragh.

There he won the 1993 Irish 2,000 Guineas on Barathea, the year after he was UK champion jockey. Perhaps best remembered for his fabulous partnership with Mtoto, he was 11 times champion jockey in South Africa before going to Britain and he was the first to ride 200 South African winners in a season.

See It Again was the first Durban-trained winner of the race for 23 years and is a three-parts brother to the dual Durban July winner Do It Again.

He was bred by Gaynor Rupert yet was bought by owner Nic Jonsson for a mere R120,000 (€6,150) as a yearling. Jonsson, incidentally, owned six of the 10 runners. Justin Snaith was also responsible for six but third was as close as he could get.

There seemed to be no excuse for Charles Dickens who suffered his second consecutive long odds-on defeat. Possibly Strydom found the faster ground in the closing stages but nobody was offering that as an excuse.

Missing from the action was top jockey Muzi Yeni who was suspended after being involved in a vicious jockeys’ room brawl with the relatively little known Billy Jacobson at Greyville 12 days earlier.

Yeni refused to comment but Jacobson told the Sporting Post: “Muzi said ‘You are useless. You will never ride as many winners as I have. You are gonna get fixed up today – and your wife and kids too.’ That’s when I lost it. I ran at him and grabbed him. We were eventually pulled apart. The stipes told us that we had been stood down and should leave the premises.”