Enos Mafokate: From Alexandra Township to South Africa’s Equestrian Pioneer
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/12/06
Enos Mafokate, born February 15, 1944, in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, is South Africa’s first Black show jumper and founder of the Soweto Equestrian Centre. Raised under apartheid, he learned resilience through hardship, working with animals from a young age and transforming systemic exclusion into groundbreaking achievement. Guided by his parents Maria and Alfeos—symbols of love, patience, and integrity—Mafokate rose from farm life to international recognition. His mission now empowers township youth through equestrian sport, education, and moral discipline. Mafokate’s journey from groom to champion represents perseverance, racial progress, and the unifying power of compassion between humans and horses.
In conversation with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Mafokate reflects on his early life in apartheid-era Alexandra and Rivonia, shaped by racial segregation and family devotion. He recalls the hardships of farm life, his father’s work as a builder, his mother’s domestic labor, and the values they instilled—education, love, and discipline. A formative connection with animals, especially donkeys, sparked his lifelong passion for horses despite systemic racial barriers. Moving to Rivonia offered improved conditions but deeper awareness of inequality. Mafokate’s memories reveal optimism amid injustice, illustrating how his childhood experiences forged his moral compass and future as a pioneering equestrian leader.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Starting with 1944, your birth and early childhood on February 15 in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, South Africa. What was life like in Alexandra Township and the wider Gauteng Province for families in the 1940s?
Enos Mafokate: In 1940’s families were separated by race; Indians, Whites, Blacks and Colored. And within the black community we were also separated according to our different cultures, this naturally made life difficult and challenging.
Jacobsen: What were your parents’ names?
Mafokate: Mother was Maria and Father was Alfeos
Jacobsen: What was their work and parenting style?
Mafokate: My Father was a well known builder and Mother was a domestic worker. They were loving and patient parents, they focused on teaching us good values and morals and prioritised education over everything.
Jacobsen: They must have been some of the first families in Alexandra, as the township was established in 1912 by H.B. Papenfus, proclaimed a year before the South African 1913 Land Act. Black people could own land there under a freehold title as a result. Notably Hastings Banda, Hugh Masekela, Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe, Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, Alfred Nzo, and Joe Modise, came from there.
You work growing up on a farm comes with all the great lessons about life and death, and hardship, one finds on a farm. What early memories seem to reflect benign and noteworthy aspects of ordinary farm life?
Mafokate: My memories of farm work are ones of hardship. I remember the farm owner punching me for calling his daughter by her first name as he wanted me to call her Miss.
Jacobsen: What events mark more momentous points of early life?
Mafokate: Instead of going out with friends I always chose and preferred to spend time with animals. Specifically riding a donkey. Choosing this lifestyle over a party lifestyle with friends marked who I would become growing up
Jacobsen: How close was the family?
Mafokate: Very close, there was lot’s of love and support
Jacobsen: How important was family?
Mafokate: Family was a special thing to me. Family showed me that life is non existent without love and support from others
Jacobsen: Moving from Alexandra to Rivonia in 1949, these are key and formative years. My parents divorced only a little later than this age. Any geographic or family change like that is stressful. How was the transition for you?
Mafokate: My parents never divorced they got separated by death .
Jacobsen: Why did the family move?
Mafokate: Family moved because my Father found a Job as a builder in Rivonia so we had to move closer to his work place
Jacobsen: Rural has a general character to it, rustic in degrees. How was rural life in Alexandra compared to Rivonia?
Mafokate: Life in Rivonia was more established than Alexandra. In Rivonia we lived at a farm house so we had access to more facilities like swimming pools, we got to play and look after
domestic pets and we had better food to eat. Life in Rivonia was so much better than the life we lived in Alexander township.
Jacobsen: A historic place with the Rivonia Trial moving the South African dial towards a more universally fair and just society with the removal of Apartheid (1963-64). I love the “I am prepared to die speech,” mostly for the crowd reaction.
Jacobsen: What animals were common in these environments–farms differ?
Mafokate: In Alexander it was common to see dogs and horses that were ridden by police men. In Rivona it was common to see cows, horses, sheep, pigs, chicken, birds, rabbits, snakes. Your typical farm animals. Animals in Rivonia were well kept and fed compared to Alexander
Jacobsen: Your first introduction to horses was not necessarily a “horse,” but more a ‘horse,’ i.e., a donkey. That’s cute and makes me giggle. How did you feel getting on the donkey? I am reminded of the experiences of Canadian and American show jumping Olympic Silver Medallist Mac Cone describing early experiences. He used what was around him, what was available–much more controlled and regulated environment now. Same style of background, but different culture, different nationality, almost the same cohort, different material deficiencies necessary for a proper, full equestrian experience–a donkey experience, nonetheless. How was the memorable exchange with the white boy?
Mafokate: Being my optimistic self, It is a memory of pure excitement and joy. Nothing else mattered when I was riding that donkey and picturing it being a horse
Jacobsen: How does this highlight the racial barriers of the time?
Mafokate: It highlighted the different and disadvantaged standards of living based on race. It showed that only white people deserved and could have the finer things in life.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mr. Mafokate.
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