BEFORE GOD WE'RE ALL EQUAL

EMPERORS PALACE READY TO RUN SALE

You may not be able to beat Bill Gates in the boardroom, but on Saturdays at Turffontein, you can level the playing fields.

Yes, it’s true that the more you’ve got, the wider you can cast your net. But at Summerhill, we’ve always had a horse for everyone.

In the past few seasons alone, we’ve seen more than a couple of “Giant Killers” emerge from the shadows of the Summerhill Ready To Run, knocking down some of the biggest names in racing.

All costing less than R100,000.

HEAR THE DRUMS (R40,000), ICY AIR (R60,000), DYNAMITE MIKE (R50,000), FORK LIGHTENING (R70,000), PHUNYUKA (R90,000), MAJESTIC SUN (R70,000), BHEKINKOSI (R65,000), and DESERT LINKS (R80,000).

Once modest in the salesring; now colossi of the turf.

What it boils down to, is this. Excellent quality, great dependability and outstanding value. All the virtues South Africans respect most.

And remember, when you’re dealing with Summerhill, you’re not just buying a racehorse. You’re investing in history.

 

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 Smoking Gun : KAHAL is Smouldering

Gavin Smith and Vangelis (Gavin Smith Racing Stables)

There was no big racing in South Africa this past weekend, so we had to settle for a somewhat mundane programme. These are the days though when you look for potential, and you search among the emerging ranks for that little flicker that sets your flames alight. It’s not without bias that we watch our Summerhill runners for these signs of developing greatness and we thought we saw glimpses of a couple of “big things” in the making on Friday and Saturday.

We’ve written before about horses we were left with, and we’re not speaking here of Imbongi alone, but of Vangelis, a big strong son of Kahal out of the Group placed mare, Northern Singer, whose greatest day came when she finished second behind no less a Champion than Époque in what was then known as the J.B. MacIntosh Fillies Classic (now known the Golden SlipperGr.1 ).

Vangelis was labeled a Derby winner the day he was born by our foal foreman, T.K.Nkabinde, yet he was prevented from expressing his talents at two and three by intervening injuries. In the end, we sent him to Port Elizabeth where he was likely to find more constant going, and on Friday he galloped away from a not uncompetitive field in the manner of a really good horse. In his trainer Gavin Smith’s own words, this could be “a proper Stakes horse in the making”, and we hope he’s right.

The Kahal/Northern Guest cross has been one of our most lethal cocktails in recent years, and has spawned the likes of Emperor Napoleon, Bold Ellinore, Evening Attire, Bhekinkhosi etc and now Vangelis. We only needed to wait one more day to see the manifestation of the success of the cross again, when Tap Tap ran away in the dams “top biller” in Johannesburg, which not only included the highly regarded Geoff Woodruff trained import, Aluminum, but also the recent S.A Oaks winner, Urabamba.

Turning for home second last in this competitive line-up, Tap Tap went to the front under a hands and heels ride and strode away in majestic style eliciting from his jockey in the post-race interview that this was a big race winner-in-waiting. His dam, Derniere Danse, yet another daughter of Northern Guest out of the Stakes winning mare, Dancer’s Choice, she a daughter of the imported Rhapsody’s Footstep, a winner of nine races for Denham Rodwell and Ricky Maingard in the days or yore.

Tap Tap was bred at Summerhill in a partnership comprising our old mate, Barry Clements of Perth, and our American based pal, Robert Lynch who recently acquired an interest in a Swettenam-bred daughter of Europe’s current leading stallion, Galileo, as a replacement for the unfortunately deceased Derniere Danse.

Alexander The Great

Bhekinkosi (Sporting Post)Gary Alexander Racing have had two of their most memorable days, one just before the New Year and the other on the stroke of New Year. They had three Summerhill-bred winners in a row on Sunday, and then on Monday they popped up with another four winners, two of which were Summerhill-breds. Gymnast and Bhekinkosi took out the two best endowed races of the day, with Gymnast going off at the prohibitive odds of 1/4, and just lasting the 1600 metre trip, to beat a strong Graduation field, including the much vaunted R2,2 million purchase, Lubricator. He’s already a Black type horse this fellow, and he looks more than useful.

Bhekinkosi on the other hand included among his victims, the Summer Cup winner, Malteme, and he went on to win in impressive style in the top billing at the meeting.

The Alexanders have been stalwart supporters of the Summerhill sales programme, so let’s hope they stay on fire for the whole of 2008.

About this business: The Aftermath

Extract from 2001 Summerhill Sires Brochure

There has to be something about the lure of the horse game, perhaps intangible, that magnetises us. When it comes to sheer unbridled drama, nothing, but nothing, can touch a big-time Thoroughbred auction. Some of the richest, highest profile exemplars of clout, chutzpa and chic are deposited from far and wide at the Ringside by an armada of smart cars, private aircraft and big jumbos.

Toss in a bit of will-to-win, a dash of Johnnie Walker Black, some good old-fashioned ego and you have the makings of a serious scrummage. Thirty times every hour, major theatrics play out. Dreams are made and dashed, thrilling victories realised, horrible decisions made, strokes of genius exhibited, and costly economic blunders committed. Some actions will change lives.

But think about this; here is an assembly of the noblest of God’s creatures, selected over the centuries for their elegance, their courage, their speed and their grace from the most exacting tabulation of bloodlines anywhere, a collection of genetic masterpieces. The colourful French trainer, Maurice Zilber of Egyptian birth, famed for his handling of the legends Vaguely Noble, Dahlia, Nobiliary, Empery, Youth and Exceller, Pawneese and Allez France for Bunker Hunt and the fabled art dealer Wildenstein, would’ve described them as a gallery of the Great Masters. By birth, of course, he was African and had an appreciation of these things.

Back at Summerhill, this is a serious business; it employs good people, fulfils ambitions and creates opportunities.
Occasionally we’re asked to name the “great ones” of our past, and whilst we’re eternally proud to be associated with them we always say “you’re only as good as your last game”.

Just ask those who bought NHLAVINI, PICK SIX, EMPEROR NAPOLEON, REBEL KING, BOLD ELLINORE, DYNAMITE MIKE, MZWILILI, REGAL RUNNER, PARIS TO PEKING, HAIZI, BHEKINKOSI, VEILED ESSENCE, BAYETE and FANYANA, from this Year’s runners alone, if they’ll be back again. You Bet, Pal, and they’ll tell you they’ve got the “Great One”.

Picture courtesy Heather Morkel

Durban July: Africa's Greatest Horse Race - The First Entries

First entries for the most prestigious horse racing event in Africa, the Vodacom Durban July (Gr 1), were released late yesterday. While we will supply more details later, Summerhill has a significant seven of them (almost 15% of the field), including all five of its runners in the Continent’s Richest horse race, The Gomma Gomma Challenge, to be staged on 5 May in Turffontein.

These five (Emperor Napoleon, Pick Six, Veiled Essence, Bhekinkosi and Fork Lightening), make up almost one third of the total field for that event.

More on this later.