THE GAME'S GATHERING GROUND

Mick Goss, Basil Marucs and Michael Roberts
(Photo : Alec Hogg)

“The numbers who sign our register
at the old gates to the farm are verging
on 40,000 a year these days…”

It’s that time of year when fans of the racing nations of the world descend upon the Southern Hemisphere. Dinner tables in England, Ireland, France, Germany and the United States are gloomy affairs : darkness descends upon them at 3:30 in the afternoon, Siberian winds blast across their icy surfaces, and they long for the sunshine of the South. Our country gets its quota of these visitors, and Summerhill enjoys a disproportionate share.

The numbers who sign our register at the old gates to the farm are verging on 40,000 a year these days, and while that includes the visiting plumber and electrician, it’s not far off a hundred a day. Of course, they come for reasons besides horses, as we’re home to the country’s top boutique hotel and restaurant, Hartford House, we run the continent’s second biggest equine insurance business at Lloyds of London, and there are still those that visit our Vuma factory for nutritional advice. Haydn Bam’s intimacy with the secrets of what has revolutionised our agricultural practices, is also much sought after.

Several days a week we’re playing host to luminaries who’ve travelled distances to see us, and occasionally these include guests from the Southern Hemisphere as well. This past week, the man who sold us Igugu, Simon Vivian of Inglis in Australia, and the well known Aussie agent, Paul Guy, joined us on Sunday evening. Two evenings later, the renowned “bloodstocker” turned CEO of Magic Millions, Vin Cox and Rowena Smith of Aushorse were the lynchpins of an evening which included jockey legends and rivals Michael Roberts and Basil Marcus, as well as Moneyweb’s founder Alec Hogg. In the same space, leader of the Democratic Alliance in the Pietermaritzburg environment, Bill Lambert (ex chairman of the Gold Circle chapter and a racing “treasure”) honoured us with a long overdue visit in the company of two august members of the business community, Remgro’s CEO Thys Visser and CFO, Jannie Durand. The latter two represent a relationship with the Rupert family which goes back to the opening of the Summerhill gates, as fine an illustration of the depth of the philosophies by one of South Africa’s most famous sons, the patriarch Dr. Anton Rupert.

Related articles on Alec Hogg’s Graceland Farm Blog :

Roberts, Marcus - legendary competitors in the saddle,
fast friends today
 

Remgro execs visit the Midlands and Gowrie creator’s
impassioned plea for excellence

BASIL MARCUS TO ACT AS ASSISTANT TRAINER TO SON ADAM

Basil Marcus
(Photo : Marcus Racing)

MARCUS RACING

Basil Marcus has returned to South Africa after deciding to cut short his Singapore training stint and this time he intends acting as assistant to his son Adam.

Marcus told Michael Clower: “Adam has a real passion for racing and he did tremendously well in the last two seasons that we were in Cape Town. We are very keen to get going again and at the moment we are waiting for stables in Natal. We are hopeful that these will come up in the near future as we are all ready to go.”

Marcus (54) started training in Cape Town in 2004 and sent out almost 300 winners in 5½ seasons including the 2007 Cape Guineas and Cape Derby with subsequent Dubai Duty Free and Singapore Airlines International Cup winner, Jay Peg. Early last year he moved to Singapore but, although he had 15 winners, he did not make the same impact and decided to return to South Africa. Adam was his assistant in Cape Town and in Singapore.

Marcus was a jockey for 30 years and had considerable success almost round the globe. In South Africa he twice won the J&B Met; he was champion in Hong Kong and in Britain he rode for Michael Jarvis and Clive Brittain. He was second on the latter’s Game Plan in the 1990 Oaks and rode her to victory in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh.

Visit
www.marcusracing.net

Extract from Racing Post 

TRAFALGAR LEGACY SOLID FOR BASIL MARCUS IN SINGAPORE

Click above to watch Trafalgar Legacy winning in Singapore for Basil Marcus
(Photo : Summerhill Stud - Footage : Signapore Turf Club)

SGD75,000 Class 3 Stakes
Singapore, Turf, 1600m
9 January 2011

South African trainer Basil Marcus and Australian jockey Ronnie Stewart are proving a successful combination in Singapore after notching up their second winner this past weekend when Trafalgar Legacy took out the SGD75,000 Class 3 Stakes over 1600m on Sunday.

Leading from the outset, Trafalgar Legacy scored a commanding two length victory over Knight Spirit (John Powell) with Tarankali (Sam Subien) a length-and-three quarters away third.

Trafalgar Legacy gave the Basil Marcus-Ronnie Stewart combination a second win over the weekend after striking with Good As Gold on Friday.

The victory was Trafalgar Legacy’s first in nine starts in Singapore having been successful once in two starts in South Africa before his arrival.

Marcus produced a great training feat, jumping Trafalgar Legacy up in grade from Class 4 company, at the same time relishing a weight drop.

“He had been extremely unlucky in a number of his races so far,” said Marcus. “It is deserved reward for the horse. I thought that by putting him up into a Class 3, it would be a benefit for him with the drop in weight. With his misfortune in his previous races he hasn’t been able to recover with the weight that he has been carrying. I’m just delighted for the horse to have finally broken through for a win and I’m also delighted for the connections which include Newbury Racing and Summerhill Stud.”

Marcus also praised the winning ride of Ronnie Stewart who judged the pace “beautifully”.

Stewart said it wasn’t his plan to go out and lead but he was happy to do so when he did find the front.

“I have ridden Long Haul a few times and I thought if I could track him I would have too much zip for him,” said Stewart. “When he (Long Haul) hesitated in going to the front I was happy to do so. I got it pretty easy and held him together for as long as possible. I was happy to stack them up and he showed a good turn of foot when I asked him for the effort. I don’t think he’s finished with winning races here just yet.”

Having five minor placings to his credit - three seconds and two thirds from eight starts prior to Sunday’s victory, Trafalgar Legacy had banked almost SGD50,000 (ZAR 265,000) in prizemoney.

A four-year-old Australian-bred entire by Rock Of Gibraltar from Toolighttoquit mare Lady’s Light, Trafalgar Legacy took his prizemoney to around SGD95,000 (ZAR 500,000)with this success.

Extract from Basil Marcus Racing

TRAFALGAR LEGACY (AUS) (Rock Of Gibraltar (IRE) - Lady’s Light (USA) )
4 Year Old Chestnut Colt
Owner : Newbury Racing Stable
Trainer : Basil Marcus
Jockey : Ronnie Stewart
Win Time : 1:35:85
Singapore Career Record : 1 Win, 7 Places, 9 Starts
Singapore Career Earnings : SGD95,000 (ZAR 500,000)

Trafalgar Legacy is a graduate from the Summerhill draft of the 2008 Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale.

RACE RESULT

#	LBH	Horse	Horse Wt	Jockey	Trainer
1	0.00	TRAFALGAR LEGACY	458	R Stewart	Basil Marcus
2	2.00	KNIGHT SPIRIT	491	J Powell	Brian Dean
3	3.80	TARANKALI	490	S Sam	John O’Hara
4	3.90	CLINT	542	V Duric	Cliff Brown
5	4.20	LONG HAUL	547	O Chavez	HW Tan
6	4.50	MARTIAL ART	527	D Beasley	Laurie Laxon
7	6.80	THE DANCER	463	B Vorster	Patrick Shaw
8	7.30	JOHN OF ARCH	522	O Placais	David Hill
9	8.80	RUSSIAN SAFARI	486	M Kellady	Steven Burridge
10	8.90	FINSTOCK ROAD	440	R Fradd	Patrick Shaw
11	10.70	ANAK LUTONG	476	M Au	HK Tan
12	12.00	SILVER ELEMENT	488	I Andy	Stephen Gray

For more information please visit :
www.summerhill.co.za

OF MARKUS JOOSTE, AIRPLANES AND BLUE VOYAGER

Markus Jooste and Blue Voyager
(Photo : Heather Morkel/JC Photographics)

WHEN IT GETS DOWN TO VOYAGER, OUR BOY MARKUS
TAKES A BIT OF BEATING

If there’s a more travelled businessman in South Africa, we’d like to meet him. We’re sure if you get your hands on Markus Jooste’s diary, you’ll find he spent as many nights on an airplane bunk as he did in his own home in the past twelve months, and SAA have probably run out of minerals to describe his class of Voyager card.

If you were tuned into the first at Turffontein Tuesday, you would’ve come across a new definition for the word “Voyager”, as the million Rand son of Muhtafal demolished an expectant field on his first racecourse appearance.

As a graduate of the Summerhill draft at last year’s Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale, a performance of this class catapults Blue Voyager right into the front line of contenders for the R1,5 million Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup, prize restricted to graduates of last year’s sale, and while he’ll be short of experience, what he proved Tuesday, was he won’t lack for class.

There were three millionaires in last year’s sale, the R2,2 million Rock Of Gibraltar colt, Trafalgar Legacy who sparkled on debut during the KZN winter season for Basil Marcus, and last week we witnessed an encouraging first attempt from the Galileo filly, Insasa, when the daughter of Europe’s best stallion was an underprepared fifth for Michael Azzie over the minimum trip. Those that know Galileo will tell you they only find their gears beyond a mile, so this was heart-warming.

With a run, Trafalgar Legacy and Blue Voyager will be many people’s idea of starting favourites for the big event, which is hardly the sort of news the connections of Havasha, Pierre Jourdan, Smanjemanje, Mahubo or  Fisani would want to hear.

But for racegoers, this has to be music for the ears. The handicappers have been saying for a while now, this is looking like a vintage crop of Three-Year-Olds, and the best evidence lies in the early entries for the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup.

Roll on Saturday 7^th November.

 

R1,5 MILLION EMPERORS PALACE READY TO RUN CUP
7 NOVEMBER 2009

EMPERORS PALACE READY TO RUN SALE
8 NOVEMBER 2009

For more information please visit :
www.tba.co.za and www.summerhill.co.za

THE BEST OF THE BEST AT EMPERORS PALACE

“Please click above for indepth analysis of Galileo at Coolmore Stud”

GALILEO, STREET CRY, RED RANSOM, ANABAA, OASIS DREAM
HUSSONET AND SHAMARDAL

Charl Pretorius www.racingweb.co.zaWhile there’s already a good deal of allure in the R1.5million on offer for graduates of last year’s Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale in this year’s Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup (scheduled for Saturday 7 November), there’s another very good reason to be in Johannesburg that weekend, besides the celebrity cocktail party at the “Emperor’s” on the Friday evening.  That rests squarely on the quality of the entry for this year’s sale on the Sunday.

The virtues of high performing graduates of the sale have long been extolled by Summerhill Stud in its brochures, adverts and on television, so we’re not going there right now, other than to say that in more recent years, Summerhill have introduced a new dimension to the sale in the form of its imported entries.

The depth in the quality of their offering last year was evident in the fact that both sales’ toppers, colt and filly, were by the international celebrity sires, Rock Of Gibraltar and Galileo, the former being Trafalgar Legacy, who has already given notice that he could be worth every cent of the R2,2 million Denis Evans forked out for him, when he posted a facile first-up victory during the KZN season. If he isn’t destined in the first draft of Basil Marcus’ horses departing for Singapore, he’ll be short odds to recover a healthy portion of his purchase price on the 7^th November.

This year’s “imported content” for the sale is, if anything, even more formidable. Firstly, they include two outstanding daughters of Europe’s standout stallion, Galileo, and this is the very last opportunity investors will have to acquire Galileos born to southern hemisphere time. You can’t buy them in Australia or New Zealand any longer because their sales are over, so this is it, and one of them hails from the immediate family of the best horse in the world last year, Zarkava, the other out of a Danehill sister to two Graded Stakes winners. They don’t come much better than that.

In their determination to broaden the appeal of the sale and to provide buyers with genuine investment pieces, Summerhill have cast their net into the richest of waters, and again the emphasis has been on the best. For example, their entry includes a daughter of the best young stallion in the United States, Street Cry (he may even be the best stallion period), a striking son of one of the best representatives of the Roberto male line, Red Ransom; a son of the best French stallion of recent times, Anabaa; a son of the best South American stallion of the modern era, Hussonet; and a daughter of the best freshman sire in Europe this year, the all-conquering racehorse, Shamardal.

Given that it costs in the order of R150 000 to bring a horse from Australia to South Africa these days, there’s consolation in knowing that these specimens are already in solid work in South Africa, and that their transport and keep to date have already been taken care of.