The South African breeding industry’s progressive game of Bigwig Chess reached a tumultuous climax on Tuesday, 2 September. The afternoon produced announcements so surprising they literally shocked the racing community at large into what is best described as a kind of meditative silence.
Media releases by South Africa’s rival bloodstock sales companies Bloodstock SA (BSA) and Cape Thoroughbred Sales (CTS) were issue barely two hours apart as the business day drew to a close. Some may have reckoned these were April fools jokes dropped on the unsuspecting as late as September. In the absence of any rumours to the contrary, however, they appear not to be such.
Both parties employed diplomatic, upbeat tones and neither made a reference to the other’s position, but what was revealed will leave most observers somewhat alarmed. While there were absolutely no hints of looming battles over sales territories or clients, this could well prove to be a watershed which won’t be shaped without high-brow casualties.
At times like these, racing can make bitter enemies of good friends, foster a climate for irreparable divisions and unholy alliances. As it stands, the industry hasn’t fully come to terms with drastic changes for survival facilitated in recent years by the streamlined brutality of big business. Fresh rifts will delay and complicate the needed growth and progress.
On to the story: As the ominous narrator in television’s hit series, ‘24’, likes to say: “The following happened between (approximately) 4 and 5pm…”
Mick Goss
In what is arguably a monumental setback, BSA made it known that multiple Champion Breeder Mick Goss of Summerhill Stud had withdrawn his event-defining draft from next month’s BSA Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale 2014, a concept the seasoned horseman and master marketer moulded into a formidable trend-setter.
CTS, in turn, threw down the gauntlet with an immediate, head-on challenge to their well-established peer. Shrewdly timed or via strange co-incidence, they announced their entry into the Johannesburg sales market, launching the bold venture with their own 2014 Ready To Run Sale (to be held more or less the same time as the now significantly weakened BSA R2R Sale).
CTS threw another stray spanner in the works with the news that a new Select Yearling Sale will be staged under their banner in April 2015, a time slot traditionally reserved for BSA’s historically entrenched National Yearling Sale and indeed scheduled for 22-25 April 2015.
Mike De Kock Racing.Com Editors note: Since Both BSA and CTS are valued paying advertisers on mikedekockracing.com, we wish to place on record that views expressed above are intended to be fair and balanced. Comments posted should not be construed as biased or in support of the objectives of either party.
With kind thanks to www.mikedekockracing.com
