Paulie de Wet, the erstwhile owner of Zandvliet Stud, was one of the racing and breeding world’s great showmen.
Few parts of the industry gave him as much opportunity to play that game as the process of marketing yearlings.
Paulie and Sadie de Wet (Pic – Supplied)
Normandy Stud’s Oscar Foulkes writes that his yearlings always looked ‘just-so’, with their gleaming coats and sheepskin nosebands.
Indeed, he won the trophy for best turned-out yearling at the Rand Easter Show on four occasions – I should mention that my grandmother, the widow of Paulie’s cousin Oscar, also won that trophy for Excelsior Stud.
The story is told of a question that Paulie posed to the hugely respected vet, George Faull, about one of his yearling colts: “What do you think he’s worth, George?”
Oscar Foulkes – thoughts on the Normandy philosophies (Pic – Supplied)
One can imagine a self-satisfied Paulie standing back while waiting for the verdict of one of the industry’s great judges.
I was a little boy on the few occasions when I met Dr Faull, but I remember him being extremely measured in what he said. There’s a reason why he was so respected.
“I don’t know, Paulie, what does he weigh?” was his eventual response, perhaps alluding to the colt’s surfeit of condition.
If such a trophy still existed, and if the judging criteria remained the same, I don’t think there’s any chance of me ever winning it. I come at this from another angle.
The French word for breeder is éleveur, which has the same etymological origins as elevate. In other words, it refers to ‘raising’ produce. The closely related word élevé (to educate or to mature) is used in referring to the maturing of wine in barrels, élevé en fût de chêne. I like this picture of ‘raising’ being more holistic than simply enabling sunflowers to grow taller.
So, as éleveur, I’m not just operating a conveyer belt that has broodmares and stallions on one end, with yearlings dropping into auction sale rings at the other end. I’ve spent too much time training for mountain biking events and generally being in proximity to the worlds of sports science and nutrition to take a narrow view of my role as breeder.
Normandy’s pride and joy – more fireworks on 25 January? (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Our job on the stud is to lay the groundwork for our produce to become high performance athletes. We’re as concerned about their freedom of movement as the coverage of their ribs. Their mental state, and relationship with humans, is as important as the gloss of their coats.
Of course, having a family history of breeding horses in the same valley for over 150 years gives me a special kind of foundation for taking this into a slightly new direction. I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Normandy Stud’s yearlings for the Cape Racing Sales (CRS) Summer Sale will shortly leave the farm. We’re both proud of the place they’re in and excited for the futures that await them.
We look forward to showing them at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth from Tuesday 21 January!
