Cosima Liszt and owners
We all know that there are lots of characters in racing and lots of stories, but the fairytales are few and far between. However, the 2012 Sansui Summer Cup will go down in racing history as one of our most popular and heart-warming results.
Despite the threatened strike action, proceedings kicked off without a hitch. The inclement weather threatened to dampen spirits, but the crowds turned up regardless. Gangnam Style was a hit with some and a miss with others, but whatever your opinion, it was hard to ignore (particularly with those mankinis!). Even the winning post had turned pink for the day. The message was clear – Summer Cup 2012 was going to be the biggest and best yet.
And so it proved.
The betting focus may have been on the De Kock string, but there were plenty with designs on the trophy. Almost from the off, Smanga Khumalo made his intentions clear. It’s no mean feat to dictate to a 20 horse field over 2000m, but Smanga and the big Tiger Ridge colt grabbed the race by the scruff of the neck and led the field a merry dance all the way home.
Stud Celebrations
For breeders Wilgerbosdrift and the Slack family, it was a dream come true. Not only had Tiger Ridge notched up a Gr3 win in the Fillies Mile with the eye-catching and aptly named Cherry On The Top, but finally added a much coveted Gr1 to his stud CV. It has been a long and hard fought road and the victory was particularly sweet after Kavanagh’s boardroom defeat in the 2010 Golden Horseshoe. Wagner made sure there was no doubt in anyone’s minds.
To make it even more special, Wagner’s dam belongs to the Wilgerbosdrift stud staff and had been bred by the grooms. Mrs Slack related that Cosima Liszt came to South Africa at about the time they imported Rich Man’s Gold. To help him get off the ground, she imported a small draft of his South American progeny and Cosima Liszt was one of them.
She is proving a reliable broodmare and has a Lundy’s Liability filly on the forthcoming CTS Book 2 sale and a bouncing Dynasty colt at foot.
Trainer
The vagaries of the racing industry are felt most keenly in our smaller yards and Joe Soma is no exception. Grandson of owner-trainer Tony Magua, Joe has served a lifelong apprenticeship at our sales rings, racetracks and training tracks and when we chat is still full of wonder and appreciation of the peculiar industry we inhabit. He says has been utterly overwhelmed by the support and well-wishes (particularly given how many bets he upset!). Despite the fact that we are all competitors, he says it has been a timely reminder that despite the ups and downs, racing also has an incredibly supportive and loyal side and none of us can survive without each other. It is moments like these that bring that home very strongly. As Joe puts it so beautifully “No one eats a cake on their own. Everyone has to take their bite and make their contribution. And so we all share in one another’s successes, because in a way we all help contribute to them.”
He started out as an assistant to Mike Azzie and took out his own license in 1992. Despite running a small string, Joe found early success with horses like Pure Platinum and Special Preview. Then things went a little quiet. One of the attractions of racing is of course the betting aspect and Joe admits that he got a bit side-tracked for a while. However, once Cheryl became ill, he left gambling and vowed to dedicate all his energies to his string. “I put my horses first, and the results followed”, he says.
Big horses usually come with big price tags and budget constraints are an ever present headache, but in the words of one of our sporting legends, the harder you work, the luckier you get and Joe is proud of the fact that makes the best of the horses he gets within realistic limits. He stands firmly by his policy that you need to listen to the horse and give each individual the time it needs, but admits that it is difficult to serve the horse and the customer equally in today’s pressured environment. However, Joe says he’d rather lose an owner than ruin a horse.
He says that his association with our champion owner has been a watershed in his life. It all started at the 2008 National Yearling Sale. An Al Mufti colt had caught his eye. He knew the horse would be beyond his budget, but he went back again and again. He went home that evening and told Cheryl that he just couldn’t get the colt out of his mind. She listened quietly and then suggested ‘Why don’t you ask Mr Jooste?’. Life pivots on such tiny moments.
What a difference a year makes
After the Concerned Owners episode, it took some persuasion and no small amount of courage, but Joe picked up the phone. He says it went to voicemail, but Mr Jooste rang back a few hours later. Joe explained about the horse and said it was going to be expensive. Mr Jooste replied “Come and see me at the sales”. The horse was called Happy Landing and the rest, as they say, is history. With a new client and an expensive horse there is always a certain amount of pressure, but Joe says the feedback was always “Carry on going. I’m behind you.” As we know, it culminated in that sensational win in the President’s Champions Challenge.
With Wagner, things worked rather the opposite way round. Joe spotted him at the sales and bought him on spec. The payment deadline loomed without any bites and Joe was forced to tell Wilgerbosdrift that he was still working on it. He again praised the support from our industry players and said they were most accommodating, said they trusted him to settle and were happy to wait. He discussed the horse with Mr Jooste and the money was in the bank the following day. The horse was offered to all his owners and Joe laughs “They all had a fair chance, but it was first come, first served.”
Movie Script
Of course, the colt’s career has been played out against the backdrop of Cheryl’s illness and her sad passing just a short time ago and Joe has been through hell and back. Racing manager Derek Brugman says it was an incredibly emotional experience for everyone, but when you added all the ingredients of the day’s events, it seemed the script was written a long time ago. “When you look at it objectively, the odds of how it all cametogether were just phenomenal. The Summer Cup was co-sponsored by Steinhoff subsidiary the JD Group and Mr Jooste’s friend David Sussman was there to hand over the trophy; Mr Jooste had enough of a gap in his schedule to actually be on course; the Gauteng Gambling Board were another co-sponsor and with Wagner bred by a groom’s consortium and ridden by Smanga Khumalo (who had a birthday on Friday), it was an incredible opportunity to showcase transformation in racing in real terms.” And of course it was Derek Brugman’s birthday on Saturday as well !
Joe says Wagner has pulled up sound and well and they are already looking to the future. Who knows – depending on the next few months, we may just see them in Durban next July.
Eddie The Mover
As if the Summer Cup result wasn’t remarkable enough, there was another bit of fun happening elsewhere on course. Eddie Powell (known variously as ‘Lucky Eddie’, ‘Eddie The Mover’ or ‘Eddie the Stayer’, had travelled up to Turffontein with his band of Merry Men (Rouvaun Smit and Desmond Manuel) to collect the R100,000 Sweepstake. It sounds so easy when one says it like that, but Eddie said his hand had been itching since Friday and he told everyone that he was going to win the sweepstake.
Eddie got his colours a little over 40 years ago (give or take, he tells me!) and says he’s simply one of life’s lucky people. He doesn’t like to buy expensive horses (‘puts trainers under too much pressure’) and says he just races for fun. He reckons he’s had somewhere in the region of 103 winners in his career. He started out with Lionel Witkowsky and has had horses with the likes of Mark Watters, Mike Stewart, Mike Bass, although these days he’s most at home at Snaith Racing.
Everyone knows Eddie and he has friends and connections across the country, with a queue of people wanting to buy horses with him, hoping a little of his luck will rub off. ‘ It works!’ he tells me. He’s brought 2 recent first time owners into the game and both of them have already had multiple wins. Eddie says one of them recently started asking when they would win a feature – he clucks and sighs, then says “he’s still got a lot to learn.”
Eddie started life as a confectioner, but then made the jump into the printing industry, starting as a sweeper at CTP. He worked his way up, started his own business from his lounge and garage and today owns a thriving business. Not bad for someone who never got to high school !
As everyone knows, he is enormously lucky and also enormously generous. Eddie is incredibly warm, incredibly welcoming and has a story and a smile for everyone. “I believe that the more you give, the more you get”. Eddie has been a long-standing WPOTA stalwart and supports many local charitable initiatives (including supporting 20 families in the Grabouw area).
So, what happened with the Sweepstake ? Eddie won it of course. And dedicated 20% to James Maree’s Grooms Trust on the spot. But that’s just his style.
Eddie Powell. A remarkable man and truly one of racing’s characters.
