Some horses just have the uncanny ability to gallop their way into racing folklore. The 2009 Vodacom Durban July winner Big City Life was one.
The early morning shrill whinny and call to order by the supreme son of Casey Tibbs, that used to echo over the Kotzen’s Woodhill Racing Estate in the latter years of the first decade of the 21st century, is a fond distant memory for one of Cape racing’s foremost families.
Big Cty Life – 2009 July winner
South Africa’s Champion 3yo Colt of 2008/9, and winner of the Durban July, Daily News 2000, Gold Challenge, Cape Derby and KZN Guineas, lies at rest alongside another ill-fated champion in Rabiya at Summerveld Training Centre.
Bred by Kathi’s Mom Judy Wintle, and born and reared at Woodhill, Big City Life was a rare talent and character.
He was raced by Raymond & Paula Deacon, Glen & Debbie Mitchell, Sue & Paul Whitmore and Liane de Jager.
The spirit of the big horse, astutely named after Mattafix’s biggest hit, by marketing shrewdie and Woodhill Assistant, Glen and Kathi’s wide-awake eldest son Kuyan, lives on through his top-class Mom, Dollar Crisis and her offspring.
This tender moment captured by Kuyan Kotzen early on Friday
In the wee hours of Friday morning, Big City Life’s half-sister sister, Take Me To Church (Judpot), delivered a smashing foal by Varsfontein-based Jet Master star, Master Of My Fate, on Woodhill.
An emotional Kathi Kotzen told the Sporting Post on Friday afternoon that Mum and Son were doing well and that Take Me To Church would be visiting Drakenstein’s exciting Lancaster Bomber this season.
Her first foal is a colt by Klawervlei’s new man, William Longsword.
Dollar Crisis, a twice winning stakes-placed daughter of Goldmark, has nine foals, seven of which are winners.
Big City Life has a half-brother on the CTS Ready To Run Sale on 22 November.
Chicago West is by Avontuur’s bang in form sire Oratorio. He is catalogued as #7.
