3 in a row last weekend for 3 top sires – what better birthday present could anyone wish for:
Trinity House – 3 in a row – another 2yo stakes winner for Captain Al
Beach Beauty – easy 3 length win – her 4th in 5 starts for Dynasty
Lady Magpie – defies 60kgs to win her 3rd in a row for Dupont – also listed 2nd his 2yo son Depardieu
Tamburlaine keeps producing winners
National Yearling Sales week – an invitation for you to join one of our syndicates – middle market will be easy to aim at for super rewards in future
Our new offices + modern FURNISHED AA GRADE OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT – 80m2
Three-in-a-row was the catch phrase last weekend as all of Captain Al, Dynasty and Dupont recorded hat-tricks with stakes class horses.
CAPTAIN AL
The filly’s features at Kenilworth and Scottsville, one for 2yo’s in the Cape and the other for 3yo’s in KZN, were run just 15 minutes apart on Saturday and marked a very exciting spell for fans of two of our top sires. The Jooste’s talented Captain Al juvenile filly Trinity House (Joey Ramsden) won the Betting World Perfect Promise Sprint (Listed) under a confident ride by Glen Hatt to make it 3 from 3. Hatt was reported as saying that she jumped well, went a length clear and stayed there the whole way. “She is one of the best 2yo fillies I have ridden in a long time”. Trainer Ramsden was equally enthusiastic about the filly and said that “she is far more advanced than anything I have had before and she could even be better than her performance on Saturday”. This daughter of National Vixen was bred by Klawervlei and is a full sister to Never Forever and could be heading for the Gr1 Allan Robertson. She’s bred to be as precocious as she races. She won a juvenile plate first time out and in her last start she easily accounted for the Count Dubois filly Comtesse Dubois. She confirmed the form with authority again on Saturday. This stakes win enforces her sire’s position at the top of the 2yo Sire’s Log and also pushes him to lead the same field by % of stakes winners. Captain Al’s sire Al Mufti died recently and as Mr Murphy would have it, his passing gives us reason to lament that loss even more as, he finds himself well positioned on the general sire’s list once again this season. He is joint 2nd leading sire by % of stakes winners coupled there with his late son Victory Moon. Al Mufti has left an incredible legacy as a sire of racehorses and as a sire of broodmares and will surely be written in the Hall of Fame as the most significant sire of sires in recent SA breeding history. Sad that our industry has lost two of his promising sons Cataloochee and Victory Moon so prematurely.
Trinity House
DYNASTY
It was a short wait for more excitement on Saturday. We were in the parade ring in Cape Town and missed seeing the Gr3 Umzimkhulu Stakes live but the grapevine brought the welcome news to us that Dynasty’s 3yo daughter Beach Beauty won unextended at Scottsville by 3 lengths for Dennis Drier’s Shanks Syndicate. Bred by Trevor Armitage the filly was syndicated in memory of his late son Mark. She has won her last 3 in a row and now has 4 wins and a place in just 5 starts for earnings of R226 000. She is unbeaten around the turn and the time of the race was 1.45 seconds quicker than the colts’ equivalent, the Gr3 Byerley Turk. She is her sire’s 3rd stakes winning filly and surely stuns the sceptic that speculated that only Dynasty colts win big stakes races? Sceptics always love to brand sires and they can be forgiven in this instance for assuming that his fillies are not as good as his colts – heck – how can one have a male Horse of the Year and champion female from a first crop – never been done before. We’re delighted to get Dennis Drier’s experienced report of this filly. He says she has a ‘devastating turn of foot’. She joins Dynasty’s big race hopes in the upcoming KZN Champion Season. Fortunately, Dynasty also has some promising 2yo’s and of course the Snaith trained Run For It who looks a useful likely July horse.
Beach Beauty
DUPONT
Alistair Gordon’s smart filly Lady Magpie came fresh off giving the colts a drubbing in Gr3 last time out to win once again with authority in Conditions Plate on Saturday making it 3 in a row. This time she conceded 4kgs to the field and still won well. Special reward for the breeders that supported Dupont last year – we assured them that we had seen enough promise in his stock to keep supporting him and bought a few when the market seemed not to want them last year. Lady Magpie’s win was not the only good news for Dupont either. Depardieu, a colt we bought at the National Sale last year to export to Pat Shaw because he has Zafonic Star, a very talented stakes winner of his last 3 starts. The colt was kept back and left with Dean Kannemeyer because of pyro problems. Dean has always reported the colt to have potential and has proven that his judgment is spot on. He got left in the stalls first time out and still won easily. Last Saturday in the Listed Betting World Somerset 1200 he was slow away again but made up the lost ground with each massive stride to finish just a neck 2nd to Hassen Adams’ unbeaten More Than Ready colt, Gimmethegreenlight, who Justin Snaith reports to be a potential star.
Lady Magpie
NATIONAL SALES
Jenna flew with me to Johannesburg this morning and we start looking at the yearlings today. The sale starts a day earlier this year so we have to get into it right away. My prediction is that the middle market will be softer and that this is the area where there will be really good value. With so many yearlings already having been auctioned there is bound to be an oversupply. No doubt that it’s going to be a buyer’s market. We are going to put together a few small partnerships and maybe even a few syndicates. I haven’t syndicated horses to race for some years but circumstances suggest that this is the year to go into it again. In the past we had fantastic success that included a high stakes strike rate for a relatively small investment. Syndicate racing can be a lot of fun. If you’d like to participate please drop us a line.
NEW OFFICES
We are over the moon about our new offices at Unit 124 Victoria Junction and feel very privileged to be here. It’s a very secure modern complex and we overlook a quiet leafy courtyard where we can concentrate on our work without the distraction of annoying taxis hooting and shouting outside all day. If only we’d moved here direct last year instead of via Sovereign Quay. What a difference.
Our systems are all in place and the library is unpacked in a super open lounge area. Come and check it out some time. We spent time here on the weekend doing research for the sales and I was very happy to answer a friend’s query about 1960 and 1961 sales by hauling out the old catalogues. The TBA advertise that as the source of champions their sale ring has supplied the likes of Colorado King and Sea Cottage. This claim has raised a few eyebrows in our part of the world. Firstly why would they want to incorrectly claim such old successes of the SA Turf when they could easily and more accurately claim modern day champions like Dynasty who really did go through their ring and more importantly for them, he was the 2nd highest priced yearling of his year.
Those that knew Piet Low in his racing heyday disagree with the TBA’s claim. They know that he leased the horse and I was able to confirm this as his dam did not have a yearling on offer in the year that they claim to have catalogued him. Likewise anyone that has been in racing for a while will know that Sea Cottage was not put through the sales ring. This too was confirmed by his dam’s absence from the catalogues.
80m2 FURNISHED AND SERVICED A GRADE OFFICE SPACE TO LET
As part of the package we bought in Victoria Junction is a space we do not need. It has its own kitchen and private loo. Two offices interleading with glass partition and a wide passage that doubles as a seating area and a massive boardroom which can be divided into reception etc. Parking can be arranged in the courtyard. If you would like to view please call my office 021 418 0566.
FUNNY NAMES
One can forgive owners for naming horses after champions but it should not be allowed. Some names are sacrosanct and should be preserved for posterity. What is the point of having a Bold Ruler who may be a discredit to the champion that is so important in so many of our pedigrees? I saw a winner last week called Double First – now his name appears in hundreds of our pedigrees because he was a stallion at stud here not that long ago. There was a move to protect important names and I was asked to assist in the exercise. I spent several weeks compiling a list for the NHRA and TBA to contemplate and heard nothing more about it. Now I realise that nothing has been done and we may well have another Northern Dancer or Nijinsky in the maidens – oh wow!!!
John
