TO SEE A MAN ABOUT A HORSE

Click above to sample the thrill of racehorse ownership…
(Image and Footage : Summerhill Stud)

EMPERORS PALACE READY TO RUN SALE
TBA Sales Complex, Gosforth Park, Germiston
6 November 2011

Mike Moon
Sport LiveSo you want to buy a racehorse? Excellent decision, if I may say, madam.

To hell with world economic turmoil! Sod nationalisation, inflation, taxation and conflagration. Let’s have fun with a horse! Good thinking. Suits you, sir.

Step right this way sir, madam - to the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale, for one day only, this Sunday in Germiston; the best source of winners rand-for-rand in the land.

Killjoys will whine that in wobbly economic times indulging in a hyper-luxury purchase like a thoroughbred is unwise. What do they know?

If they were really so smart, would they be dispensing dull advice as flea-bitten financial planners and moth-eaten columnists?

Look at it from another angle. Inflation erodes value in your savings, the ANC mafia hoovers the fiscus and gives you ever less value for taxes, the eurozone and Obamanomics might sneeze-cough-die and give us pneumonia, someone might bomb someone, pubs could be nationalised and Julius Malema may don a purple suit with matching shoes and trilby (oh, wait .).

To cheer yourself up amid all that woe you could have a beautiful horse, with glossy bum and pricked ears, who runs like billyo and brings you fortune, fame, love and laughter.

In whom would you rather put trust for the future? A multi-headed, swivel-eyed monster called Zuma-Papandreou-Sarkozy-Merkel-Netanyahu-Mugabe-Malema or a lovely, big-brown-eyed horse called Igugu?

Clearly some rich and clever people think the latter as thoroughbred horse sales around the world have ticked up markedly and exited the doldrums.

Thing is, no matter what madness the econo-politico bossy-boots dream up, there’s still a Durban July, a Derby, a world cup and thousands of other races to be won. And you can’t win ‘em without a horse, Tonto.

The Ready To Run is not a bad place to start looking for a runner. Purveyor of schooled, unraced three-year-olds, the sale has built an impressive honours roll in a short time.

Many of its bargain buys have won millions in prize money. Imbongi went for R140,000 and collected R8.9-million. Paris Perfect was R80,000 and took R5.2-million. Pierre Jourdan (R60,000; R4.1-million) and Hear The Drums (R42,000; R1.8-million) are others.

Igugu, 2011 July champ, was pricey at R1-million, but returned the favour with R5.5-million in less than a year.

The value proposition, though, is the Ready To Run Cup, a race exclusively for well-performed graduates of the previous year’s sale. Boosted by a modest point-of-sale sweepstake fee, the Cup is now worth R2-million.

With only 150 horses catalogued, each purchase has a mathematical one in eight chance of running for that whopping prize. By contrast, July or Met runners are in the top 1% of a few thousand horses in the country.

Sitting there fretting about the world will never give you the exciting ride that a racehorse will.

If you want to sample the thrill, tomorrow’s festive Charity Mile meeting at Turffontein is the place.

Extract from Sport Live

For more information please visit :

www.tba.co.za
and
www.summerhill.co.za