Retail Renegade: Richard Maponya

Sitting in his majestic home in northern Johannesburg, Richard Maponya tells a story. After building up a retail empire in the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa's first black tycoon fought for six years to become a racehorse owner when the Jockey Club of Southern Africa (now known as the National Horseracing Authority) was a white-only bastion. But once he was admitted (after a lengthy legal battle), he couldn't resist the temptation to needle his adversaries. "I called my first horse Another Color," the 80-year-old Maponya recalls. "On his third time out, Another Color came scorching home. At 400 m out, he...