GOLDEN GATES OF HARTFORD

Entrance to the Hartford Estate
(Photo : Leigh Willson)

“Bred, raised and trained at Hartford were the heroes
of every major race on the South African calendar”

Mick Goss
Summerhill CEOI remember the first time I entered the Hartford gates, like it was yesterday. Here was the greatest private breeding enterprise in South African history, here was a driveway adorned with old flower pots dating back to the 40s, bearing the names of 48 gladiators, all champions or the next best thing. Bred, raised and trained at Hartford were the heroes of every major race on the South African calendar, their supremacy so marked that when he penned his treatise on the great private racehorse nurseries of the world, Sir Mordant Milner spoke of England’s Lord Derby and the Aga Khan; of Marcel Boussac, the founder of the Christian Dior organisation in France; of Federico Tesio, the doyen of Italian breeders; he spoke of Phipps, Hancock and Calumet Farm in the United States; and of A.R.Elllis of Hartford. I was in awe. And as my brother Pat and I wound our way down that historic road to the steps of the region’s most gracious homestead, we recalled the tenth of the Commandments against the coveting of “thy neighbour’s house”.

From the time I’d first fondled a Duff’s Turf Guide on the potty as a three-year-old, I knew of the Hartford legends, and as my capacity for the game grew, I learnt that if there was a horse in the parade in the green, black and gold, it was as good as money in the bank. Mowgli, Cape Heath, Salmon, Panjandrum, Ajax, Magic Mirror, Master Polly, Magic Cloak, Magic Charm, Sentinel, Hat Trick, Fantasma, Albion, Lavonia, Fantastic, Famulus, Masham, Sybil’s Nephew, Pussmoth, Preston Pan, Prestissimo, Visionary, Flaming Heath, Magic Link, Cosmonaut, Rudigore, Dazzle, Alyssum, Hey Presto, Royal Occasion, Derby Day, Alhambra, Wayfarer, Pinocchio, Pipes Of Pan, Miracle, Broken Spell, Gypsey Moth, Beacon Light, and Council Rock. The Durban July, the Summer Cup, the Met, the Gold Cup, countless Derbys, Guineas and Oaks, the Gilbeys and the Smirnoff Sprint; on the occasion of the Royal visit to South Africa, three King’s Cups in three different centres; and anywhere from a 1000m to 3000m.

Many of our readers know the story of how Summerhill came to acquire its neighbour, Hartford, through a handshake exchange in the toilet in those bleak days of 1989. If you don’t, it’s a story of its own, and it’s for another day. But the one thing that had always fascinated me was the story of Hartford’s phenomenal success, and I spent a week with Graham Ellis drawing it all out when the handover took place. His father, A.R. (Raymond) Ellis’ curiosity with horses was aroused by the presence on the farm of six Italian prisoners of war, who’d been captured during the 1940 Abyssinian campaign. One of these men was the ex head groom of the greatest European breeder of the era, Senor Tesio; and it was he that ignited the flame which found the motherload. His advice to the Ellises was “breed like you mean it”, and they did. That year Raymond Ellis bought two young fillies at the National Sale, and stabled them in the garden across the way from the old stone house, built by the family of the last Prime Minister of the Colony, Sir Frederick Moor. Those that frequent Hartford House these days will know the stable as Suite 7, named for one of those two fillies, Preston Pan. She was something of a terror, and kicked the hell out of her companion as well as the stable divide, so she was dispatched to a paddock adjacent to the Hartford chapel, from whence she was trained for the duration of her career. Enigmatic though she was, Preston Pan was brilliant to the degree that she remains the only two-year-old filly ever invited to run in the Durban July, the continent’s greatest horserace. Whatever she was as a racehorse though, she was even more as a broodmare. Of the 48 names that adorn the old pots on the driveway, no fewer than 18 trace their lineage to Preston Pan and her daughters.

What was it about the thoroughbred that penetrated the soul of A.R.Ellis and his family, that gave birth to this celebrated farm, to three champion trainers and five champion jockeys, all of whom resided at one time or another in homes and stables built by that handful of Italians?

In an oft-quoted response, Graham Ellis, one-time Chairman of the Durban Turf Club following a stint as trainer to the finest string in the game, reminded me that of all the species on earth, including us humans, the racehorse is the only one whose genetic history is tabulated right back to the original founding fathers of the breed. He recalled that the welfare of the thoroughbred had been in the hands of the British aristocracy for more than three centuries. From the outset, the sport was conducted as all sports should be, for the sake of the sport, and it was all about one nobleman beating another. Throughout this time, they selected their stock for the right reasons too, for their nobility, their grace and their presence, for their intelligence and courage, for speed, stamina, mental toughness and physical durability, all the traits we as a species would aspire to. And that’s why the racehorse is the good Lord’s greatest creation.

Enquiries :
Tel : +27 (0) 33-2631081 / +27 (0) 33-2631314
Fax : +27 (0) 33-2632818 / +27 (0) 33-2632414
Email : info@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

THE RHYTHM OF THE SEASONS

The season’s first snows on the Drakensberg Mountains
(Photo : Leigh Willson)

“When were you last in the KZN Midlands?”

Looking at occupancies at Hartford House, it’s apparent that ever more, travellers are wanting a piece of this enchanted kingdom. There is a magic to this place, not only in its natural scenic splendour, but in the colours that herald the changes to the seasons. No time is better though than the autumn, when the mornings are crisp, the sky is blue, and you can see forever.

If you’re “horsey”, you’ll know that its yearling prep time, and if you’re familiar with Summerhill, you’d be expecting us to be busy with the weaning of foals and the beginnings of the old ritual of teaching our Ready To Run candidates the ropes.

Haydn Bam’s agric unit is frantically baling up the last of the hay, and his tractor pilots have been grinding away in the dark before dawn through the twilight of the evening; discing, harrowing and planting. The welfare of the horses is paramount at Summerhill, as you know, and all this activity is part of the stocking up of the larder for winter, with more than 350 hectares of emerald rye grass, targa oats and a salad of fescue, cocksfoot, white and red clovers, and the lavender of the grazing vetch.

And by the way, we had our first snow yesterday morning, not on the farm, but on the nearby Drakensberg mountains. I said at the beginning, autumn is famous for its blue skies and long views, but you’ll forgive us our joy at the good rain and the full moon brought overnight. Without it, those paddocks beyond the irrigators, would not yield the bounty we would expect in this part of the world from our winter crops. Townspeople are often oblivious to it, but there’s a reason you get spring tides at both ends of the moon’s spectrum, and even in the dead of winter, you can expect a little moisture when the moon is either full or in its newest phase. That’s why those who live by the stars, tell you to plant by the moon.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval +27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

THE IDEA IS EXCELLENCE

Magnus Nilsson of Faviken
(Photos : Faviken Restaurant)

“I would put Hartford House in the same league as Faviken in Sweden
and the Royal Mail in Australia”

Most of our readers will know of Bruce Palling’s recent proclamation of Hartford House among the top three country restaurants on the planet. That’s a helluva statement about any eatery, but it’s all the more so coming from a journalist of his standing, considering he is the European critic for one of the world’s most influential newspapers, The Wall Street Journal. We were obviously intrigued to know who our “clubmates” were, since he’d courted Sweden’s Faviken and Australia’s Royal Mail as the three making up the trifecta.

Our “horsey” followers might ask what, besides the word “trifecta”, “this has to do with Summerhill and horses, and the answer resides not only in the fact that so many of our visitors to the stud have intimate memories of Hartford, but also, both these businesses have adopted excellence as their benchmark, and any celebration for Hartford is a celebration for Summerhill, and vice versa.

Introducing his critique on the Hartford restaurant, Mr Palling opened with “I can’t say I was looking forward to this journey, as it was more than a thousand miles round trip for what looked like a bit of a tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. I had imagined that this was a charming backwaterey sort of place that was suffering from being there for too long. Big Mistake. I would put Hartford House in the same league as Faviken in Sweden and the Royal Mail in Australia, as one of the very best isolated/remote places to eat anywhere on the planet”.

While we haven’t yet had the honour of visiting the Royal Mail, we have at least discovered its whereabouts. It’s located in a tiny hamlet called Dunkeld, about 300 kilometres north west of Melbourne. Faviken is even more remote. On any journey there, unless you go by helicopter, you’re obliged to hire a limo or a taxi; in either event, you’re going to need a driver, and at some point on the journey, he’s going to tap his brakes, cock his head over his shoulder, and ask “Have you got everything you need for tonight, like a toothbrush?” he asks “Because this is the last village. After here there is nothing”. Forty minutes of empty road later, the car will pull up at its destination: a small crop of copper-coloured buildings on a seemingly-endless 18^th century hunting estate, surrounded by a wilderness of forests, mountains and valleys. But, remote though it is, travellers from America to Estonia, France to Japan make this same trip every day, because in one of these buildings, a chef by the name of Magnus Nilsson runs a restaurant which seats just 16 patrons. And, like Hartford, because of its intimacy and location and for what it aspires to, it’s the future of fine dining; in Faviken’s case, it’s aspiring to become one of the most influential dining establishments in the world.

Nilsson was born 170 miles away in the small town of Selanger. At 19, he signed up to work at Pascal Barbot’s 3 Michelin-starred restaurant, L’Astrance, in France. On his return to Sweden, he joined Faviken’s owners as an advisor on their wines, and in 2008 decided to overhaul the estate’s restaurant, which at the time catered to skiers, specialising in moose fondue. It didn’t do well. Five years on, the restaurant pulls as many people as the skiing slopes which used to fill the aircraft.

Here’s the Faviken routine. Guests arrive around 5pm and are shown to their rooms, which have light wood walls and thickly blanketed beds. Next you spend an hour sipping cold beer in a hot sauna overlooking the hills. At 7pm, having shared a state of virtual nudity with your fellow diners, you converge for drinks and the first of 20 enterprising courses, from an amuse-bouche of wild trout’s roe in a crust of dried pig’s blood, to raw mussel and wild pea pie, served by the restaurant’s four chefs. For the marrow-based course, Nilsson saws open the moose bone, right there in the middle of the dining room.

Tonight’s menu is light on root vegetables; ninety-five percent of the ingredients are grown, foraged or reared on the estate (when Nilsson goes for a walk, he takes his gun in case he spies game). This year, the roots came up late, so diners eat whatever’s ripe that day. Get the drift?

“That doesn’t cut costs though, it’s super-expensive to produce this food”. The restaurant is necessarily site-specific: not ideal. It can’t relocate or expand without ceasing to be Faviken, with so few covers. Like Hartford, you don’t want to grow it; for fear of losing one of your greatest drawcards: intimacy. And since we’re both operating with the finest ingredients, it will always, in a remote environment likes ours, be difficult to get the ingredients. “If you have a restaurant that needs 500 langoustines a week, you would struggle to get the quality we work with. I want it to be like this because one of the good aspects is that I like to do the cooking myself. I don’t want to train a 100 people to do my stuff,” says Nilsson. Those that know Jackie Cameron, will understand what he’s saying.

If that sounds like artistic protectiveness, it’s because it is. Both of us prioritise “hands-on” over perceived culinary wisdom. Cooking is not an act of science; it’s silly to think that just because you know the temperature at which coagulation occurs in a piece of meat, by simply applying the temperature, it’s going to be perfect every time. Every piece of meat is different. Similarly, Nilsson prefers beef from 5 to 10 year old dairy cows, rather than the 2-year-olds most butchers use. They have better marbling and more concentrated flavours, and patrons are not critical of ingredients. “They just believe what people say”.

Along with Noma in Copenhagen, (according to San Pellegrino and Aqua Panna’s power list, the best restaurant in the world, Faviken, has reasserted Scandinavia’s presence on the gastronomic map. The question is, will it prove a flash in the pan?

“I think this huge interest in Scandanvian food will mellow down”, he says. “What frustrates me today, you can go to a number of high profile British restaurants, and they’ve been fed the aesthetic language of Noma, which is awesome, but which doesn’t belong there. They should focus on their own area. Such places would do better to imitate in spirit rather than the letter. The most important thing is that we are, I think, showing how things could be”. Although historically, Sweden has had a decadent cuisine, much of the knowledge has been lost over the generations, with the move to what one might term “westernization”. To reinvigorate the culinary’s regional traditions, they need to showcase ingredients in their purest form, much as Cameron and her team at Hartford do. The result is that most of what comes out of Nilsson’s kitchen, is raw.

Critics are billing Faviken as the new Noma. Unsurprisingly, that makes it harder to get a table, and now, there’s the Faviken cookbook, equal parts local history, photo essay and instruction manual, designed to bring the world a taste of the little restaurant in the hills. In true Nilssonian fashion, it omits timings and measurements from the receipes. Is he concerned that it might render the book uncommercial? “Not at all. Who buys these books to cook from anyway? There are going to be a few who are willing to try the tough receipes, but the point is that they read the history, and get inspired by the way we work, and pick up things. Then they can do something nice themselves”.

For more information about Hartford House, please visit :

www.hartford.co.za

SUMMERHILL'S "USP"

Cheryl and I on Yasawa Island, Fiji
(Photo : Supplied)

“Travel these days takes more than money.
It takes the most precious commodity of the lot: time.”

Cheryl and I have been travelling a lot of late. The Wild Coast (there is only one), Cape Town, Jo’burg, Thanda Game Reserve, Phinda of the same, Melbourne and Yasawa Island in Fiji. Quite a mixture. It’s premature to talk about Fiji, because we’ve only just arrived, but it’s fair to say that it measures up to everything Captains Cook and Bligh had to say about it in the good old days (in Bligh’s case, before the Bounty crew made him walk the plank!).

Being racehorse breeders and hoteliers, you can’t avoid the comparisons between the way we do things and how others go about their businesses. Survival in the modern world depends upon how you distinguish your product from others, and I suspect that whatever Summerhill and Hartford are, it’s because they were built without money. When you have the funds, you simply pay and you get. When you don’t, you have to be creative, you have to be intuitive about what gets a pulse racing. It’s about authenticity, atmosphere and adventure, sounds, scents and scenery, tastes and taboos. Good hotels and good horses always reflect a sense of “place”, their environment, their histories, their traditions and importantly, their people. In the world of travel, a high level of discernment is creeping into every arena. Today, the customer’s interest in artisanal beer and food, for example, is echoed in an interest in artisanal hospitality. Hartford House is dedicated to sating people’s interest in the world’s distinctive places: you quickly lose any sense of being in a unique environment when staying in a typical high-end hotel in London, Paris or Shanghai, Cape Town, Sydney or Dubai.

Increasingly, travellers seek destinations that accommodate lifestyle and weather, bespoken to their surroundings and community. Hotels should reflect their past, and the architecture of their neighbourhood; discerning guests understand the difference between décor and design, and seldom mistake decoration for good design.

Travel these days takes more than money. It takes the most precious commodity of the lot: time. Most people can buy a car, a handbag or a smart pair of shoes, but travel calls for energy, curiosity, a degree of adventure, even bravery. Not long from now, the greatest indulgence will not be a Ferrari; it will be a fortnight in Zululand, or even a living being; let’s not forget, the greatest creature the good Lord ever created, is the racehorse. And you can come by yours with a week at Hartford. An Argentinean polo player on a recent visit to us, tells it like this: “I was waiting for that combination of bliss and despair which makes African journeys so memorable - a melodramatic pose, a “Hendricks” and tonic coursing through my veins, a three day scruff of beard, a whiff of revolution in the air!”.

Our places thrive because of their originality, they survive on account of their old fashioned values. The more technologically focused the world becomes, the less people want to check-in via iPad and have their pillow preferences stored in a computer. Instead, our guests like to arrive and be greeted by their surnames; they soon get to know themselves again by their first names. And if you’ll give us the time to unpack for you, you’ll find your clothes pressed and hanging in the closet. Simple, old-style service is the most pleasant luxury.

Hartford and Summerhill have become beacons of their trades. In a world in which it’s no longer so “cool” to be a waiter or a groom, we remember, every day, what an honour it is to serve.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval +27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

THE GOOD MAN IS THE FRIEND OF ALL LIVING THINGS

Viewing Rhino at Phinda Private Game Reserve
(Photo : Land Of Legends)

“THE GOOD MAN IS THE FRIEND OF ALL LIVING THINGS”
-Mahatma Gandhi

Mick Goss
Summerhill CEOGoodness knows, we’ve banged on often enough about the rewards we’ve reaped through our educational programmes at Summerhill. That we preside today over one of the best teams in the world is no coincidence: these programmes started when we first opened the gates, and those that know Summerhill, know the value of what’s happened here. Responsibility for the Mirza Al Sayegh Creche was recently assumed by Angelique Heinen (Business Manager Ferdi’s new “acquisition”), and she’s doing a sterling job preparing the little ‘uns for life in the big world.

Cheryl and I have been fortunate in so many ways in our involvement with this property, and one of our most pleasurable dividends comes from our association with Hartford House, Cheryl’s favourite “child”. Quite apart from the fulfilment that comes from the beaming grins of satisfied guests, we’ve built associations with other exceptional establishments, principally those who partner us in the Land Of Legends, the world’s only collection of hospitality establishments whose “glue” is their celebration of history, their respect for culture and tradition and their preservation of the environment. With very few exceptions, these properties represent the cream of KZN’s leisure destinations, and include The Oyster Box, The Beverley Hills, Phinda Private Game Reserve, Hartford House, Fordoun Spa, Rocktail Beach Camp, and the odd one out in hospitality, Fee Berning’s famous Ardmore Ceramics.

As a group, we get together quarterly, and a couple of weekends ago we assembled at Phinda, arguably Africa’s finest private wild preserve, with its seven different ecosystems and the variety of species it supports. On the way there, we were privileged to be invited to Thanda Private Game Reserve, which is the property of the celebrated Swede Dan Olofsson, best known for his past association in the high tech world of Ericsson, his principal ownership of Teleca, Sigma and Epsilon, as well as numerous philanthropic commitments in South Africa. Thanda is a magnificent facility, and this past weekend it was populated by a mass of foreign visitors, mainly Swedes. We all know what Sweden did for our politicians in exile in the apartheid years, and we know too, that championing the cause of the underdog has long been a Swedish fetish. Of course, Alfred Nobel, who gave his name to the Nobel Prize, was a Swede, and that the hallowed institution that goes by his name, remains housed in that country.

Sweden is renowned for the fact that it has one of the world’s most effective welfare systems, it’s famed for its standard of living, and its generosity towards philanthropic causes. Yet few of us know the extent of the generosity of the Swedes as a nation, and the remarkable work which goes on in the community around Thanda in the name of their “Star for Life” programme. It’s one thing for us South Africans to be doing our darndest to uplift our communities, it’s another entirely for people who live as far away as the Swedes do, to be doing so, and the team at Thanda appear to have settled on a marvellous model, where the benefactors not only part with their cash for these causes, but when they visit, they happily pay for that privilege as well!

We’ve been associated with Phinda since its earliest days, when Dave and Shan Varty and the Londolozi team were the propellers behind its creation. At that time, Summerhill was home to horses belonging to the three game reserve “kings”, the Vartys, Mike Rattray of Mala Mala and Luke Bales of Singita. We knew these people well, and the enormous roles each has played in moulding the future of this country. Nobody has done more work in this realm than the guys at Phinda, and they’ve extended the hand of friendship across the waves as well, hence their brand name “andBeyond”. The Fitzgeralds, Steve and Nicky, perpetuated (and perfected) the dream, and Joss Kent is the latest impetus behind Kevin Pretorius’ tireless efforts at Phinda. You can’t help but be mesmerised by the Phinda experience, but this time we saw another dimension.

We were taken to remote Northern location in the reserve, where six rhinos were quarantining before being “gifted” to the Botswana government. How many of us know that there are fewer than 20 rhinos in the whole of Botswana, and that another six will add almost 25% to that population?

Holding six rhinos, strange to one another, in a confined space, is an onerous undertaking of its own, yet these were quite at ease with one another in preparation for their new frontiers. There are issues attached to relocation, one of which is often “bombshelling”, leading to a dispersal in any direction of these precious animals. In the context of what is happening with rhinos throughout the world, we know that that is bound to end in tragedy, so the timing of the transfer is critical. When these creatures arrive in Botswana, they will do so shortly ahead of the annual flooding of the Okavango delta, and they will remain in quarantine on their island base until such time as the floodwaters are high enough to contain them for the next several months. It’s hoped that by the time the waters recede, they will be sufficiently comfortable with one another and their new habitat to call it “home” under the watchful eyes of the andBeyond team; For all its wildlife diversity, it’s incomprehensible that Botswana should be so poor in its stocks of one of the planet’s most hunted creatures.

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” - Albert Einstein

For more information, please visit :

www.landoflegends.co.za