Disco Al – ran his heart out
Super Saturday was a funny old day with some competitive racing and some good results. I suppose the best horse won the Gold Cup. He looked well handicapped and ran accordingly. We did not have much luck and in a big field like that, on a tight track, one needs everything to go one’s way, writes Joey Ramsden.
Let’s hope our two old boys are around for another year as they really ran smashing races.
Sadly, the one has come back with the habitual Greyville shiner and the other came back with a small cut on his tongue. Who knows how that happened but when it rains it pours and that is just the way the cookie crumbles.
Gallica Rose – lovely Silvano mare
Fortunately we were able to bounce back with a game performance from Gallica Rose. She really put in an extra special effort and has improved beyond all recognition.
When I look at how small and weak she was when she first came in and look at her now, no one would recognise her as the same horse. She has really done exceptionally well and should have won more than five out of fifteen races. In fact, her stats should read seven from fifteen. However, they are what they are and she is now a well-deserving Grade 2 winner.
Silvano is the most amazing sire and produces colts and fillies in all shapes and sizes and they run accordingly. It was a good day’s racing all round. Sadly, the crowd was probably not the largest due to the unavoidable moving of the race meeting, and one can only sympathise with all involved.
The new season has kicked off already and the clocks have been turned back to zero. We will all be working our socks off to try and claw our way back up the statistics and trainer leader board. It always seems so strange to just wipe the slate clean and in the words of Billy Idol “start again”.
We will be doing our best and it is exciting to see the yearlings start to dribble in to be broken in.
Felix Coetzee – we are using his services
This year we are doing things differently: we are breaking them in at the stables, using Felix Coetzee, before throwing them out on various spelling farms to grow and mature. One thing is for certain: the spelling farm business is definitely a business one wants to be getting involved in, especially in the Cape. They are all extremely full and it is difficult to find somewhere to send the horses. It just goes to show how valuable land is, no matter what our beloved president is trying to do to it!
The horses in Durban will be having a holiday up there, with them spelling on Annette Dawes Highgate Farm – thankfully she is not too full. It is more of a working man’s holiday to keep up their fitness – we bring them across from the farm daily for a short canter on the treadmill and they then go back to Annette to relax in the paddocks. Sadly, we do not have any paddocks at Summerveld so it is quite tough to turn a horse out to let them relax. The stables are certainly big enough to almost be paddocks in their own right but it is always lovely to get them away from the intense racing atmosphere.
It is funny, on the Sunday morning when leaving Durban, how the weather always seems to change and there is a warmth in the air. It was no different this year. Hopefully the Natal team can get together and try and do something for the horses that want a bit more of a galloping track and surface. Continuously competing on tight tracks is incredibly frustrating all round and it is not always the best horses that win.
Dean Diedericks –
In a few weeks, the season will move to Joburg and the excitement starts all over again. Natal is still short of the wet stuff and looking through my Sunday Argus, so is the Cape. We desperately need to fill our dams for the summer or we will have one extremely frustrated and unhappy Dean Diedericks on our hands.
It is good to finally have the Durban season over and to be back in Cape Town where we can now start with our babies. It is also the time of year for all the Awards dinner’s down here in the Cape and obviously the ARCSA Awards up in Johannesburg. We also have the CTS sale coming up and it is always good fun (and hard work) viewing the hundred-odd yearlings. Who knows; we might even find a buyer or two. This weekend was the magnificent Klawervlei Stallion Day which I believe was, as always, a top notch affair. They were proudly presenting their two new super sires and I wish them all the success and luck in the world.
It is difficult to believe that our racing season has come to an end and the Football season has come to life with the Charity Shield. Chelsea and Arsenal slugged it out to a pretty boring 1-0 victory going to the Gunners. I hope the Premier League brings more excitement. Ludicrous amounts of money have been spent on, I think, some extremely moderate individuals. However, it is a capitalist society and there is nothing we can do about it.
The Ashes is hotting up and I can seem my good friend, Rod McCurdy, sweating away in his Randburg studio. I have a strong feeling the Aussies are going to fight back for Test 4 and we are in for a nail-biter in Test 5. I am off now to the Western Shoppe to get some cribbox to stop me biting my nails.
I wish everyone a successful and prosperous new racing season, with many winners and loads of prize money coming your way.
