Showbiz : From Solicitor to Judge

Mick Goss
(Summerhill Stud)

Most of our readers know that the boss spent 17 years practising variously as an attorney (solicitor), advocate (barrister) before finally turning his hand full-time to Summerhill Stud. Like most lawyers with an aspirational perspective about their careers, he might one day have fancied his chances as a Judge of the Supreme Court, though his childhood obsession with racehorses was always bound to get the sentimental “nod” as to the course his career was likely to take.

While it may not quite have been the “judge” he’d have had in mind when first admitted to practice in the old Natal Division of the Supreme Court in 1974, Mick Goss recently arrived at the kind of “judge” he might’ve preferred anyway.

Invited as the principal judge at Thoroughbred Day at the Royal Brisbane Show, Mick Goss joins one of the world’s greatest breeders of racehorses, Sir Patrick Hogan, among the panel who’ll be doing duty at the show. While Sir Patrick Hogan will be dealing with non-Thoroughbred classes (he did the Thoroughbreds last year) Mick takes his place this year in the division said to boast the richest prize money in show horses anywhere. His brief in an event which takes its course throughout the day on Tuesday 12^th August, will incorporate the judging and displaying of horses for breeding, racing, police, light and World-Cup thoroughbred horses.

It’s a tribute to South Africa that the Australians should’ve ventured this far to find someone to undertake this task which incidentally, is a first for our man whose roots stretch back to ten miles outside of Lusikisiki, arguably the remotest village in South Africa.