Jeffery Syster is a 21 year old, 2nd year Apprentice at the South African Jockey Academy, who recently signed his racing papers and is looking forward to starting his race riding career. Jeffery was very excited about signing his papers saying “Signing your papers is a special milestone as an apprentice, it shows you have progressed enough to start race riding and I would like to thank all the Riding Masters for the assistance and guidance to get me to this next stage in my career.”

Jeffery hails from Brakpan in Gauteng. He matriculated from Delpark Secondary School in 2016 and has a large and close family that includes his Mom, Dad, 2 brothers and sister. Jeffery loves Soccer and is an avid Orlando Pirates and Manchester United fan who plays as a striker. Jeffery had a try out for Orlando Pirates in 2014, which didn’t pan out due to transport issues, and also played for the Liverpool Academy and Samba Boys before joining the Academy.

Jeffery was attracted to the sport of horseracing after his uncles introduced him to it, and became interested in becoming a jockey as grew to appreciate the athleticism and skill required to become jockey! His favourite jockeys are Brandon Lerena and Sean Veale, who he feels are both very successful jockeys, skilful riders and are good role models for aspiring apprentice jockeys to emulate.
Jeffery enjoys riding work in the mornings and said “I’m currently riding work for Mr Roberts, Mr Dixon, Mr Hill, Mr Puller and Mr Naidoo in the mornings and on average ride about 20 horses every morning. Riding work teaches you so much about riding and the more you ride you start to develop a feeling for the different horses.”