VICTORS LUDORUM

Click above to watch Igugu’s win in the 2012 J&B Met (Grade 1)
(Image : Gold Circle - Footage : SABC3)

Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale
TBA Sales Complex, Germiston, South Africa
27 - 29 April 2012

Today would’ve been business as usual at Summerhill, if it were not for the fact that it’s the departure date for our horses headed for the Emperors Palace National Yearling Sales. You only have to enter the Hall of Fame at our School of Management Excellence, to know what it means to us. So many great horses adorn the walls, so many warriors who fought the brave battle in the cause of our championships, and more than a few in every National Sales draft. By the time they leave, these fellows are “family”; we’ve played the role of “god” in planning the union of their parents, we’ve been the mid-wife when they arrived, and they’ve been hand- raised, step-by-meticulous-step, to this point. Now they have names, they’ve got personalities, and they’re carrying the brand.

There’ll be more than a touch of nostalgia as they take their first tentative steps onto the float, and while the old rituals where the woman and the children would serenade them off the premises are no longer (headmasters take school too seriously these days), it’s a strange world they’re entering when they first set foot on the big “dog” that tows them to Johannesburg.

You can’t help getting sentimental at times like these, and you can’t help remembering a couple that went before them. Just yesterday, I passed a paddock of weanlings, and I caught a glance of Hear The Drums in the midst of them. Just a fortnight before, there were a few among this lot verging on delinquency, looking like they needed reform school. The fellow in their midst is not an old man, but he has the grace and the wisdom of a sage, and already there is a sense of decorum in the bunch. Hear The Drums was a once-in-a-lifetime racehorse. Literally. He’s been where no other racehorse in South Africa has ever been. He took the “around-they-go-again” sameness out of the game, except in the number of times he visited the Number One box. This was a man who gave us not one, but 35 undying moments.

Pierre Jourdan isn’t that big, his parents weren’t famous, and he didn’t cost much as a youngster. But he doesn’t know any of this. In his first year at the races, he captured the hearts of fans across the nation. When he raced home in the SA Classic, the crowd clapped him all the way to the winner’s circle. “PJ” was briefly more a deity than a horse. A prominent member of the Catholic clergy was so overcome, he forgot the injunction against worshipping graven images. He asked for, and received a few coppery hairs from “PJ’s” tail.

As Mike de Kock left the mounting yard for Imbongi’s assault on the Dubai Festival’s richest mile, he said “no excuses today”. He didn’t need any. Destiny came rushing up to embrace him. When Christophe Soumillon said “laisse alle”, Imbongi surged away, shaking off the hangers-on, much as Oscar Pistorius might farewell a bunch of neighbourhood joggers.

Much as we’re tempted to recall the memory of the epic battle between Igugu and Pierre Jourdan in last year’s Vodacom Durban July, we won’t. Igugu has moved on since then, and she showed us another dimension in this year’s J&B Met. She’d been to the well so many times, her preparation had been severely interrupted, and she was feeling the effects of all sorts of bodily intrusions.

There was all kind of negative conjecture in the popular press, there were any number of warnings from those who supposedly know better, but the public would have none of it. They nailed Igugu down solidly to favouritism, as if they knew she wouldn’t let them down. The truth is, in nine consecutive runs, she never looked like doing so, yet here was something different. She faced the cream of South Africa’s athletic talent, she was going in half-cocked, and whatever her history and origins, there are limits to everyone of us and what we can do.

When they turned for home, the 40,000 in the stands let it rip. With 300 to go, there was no sign of Igugu, let alone the characteristic burst. The crowd fell silent.

In that instant, she lowered her head, like she shared their anxiety, she gathered her limbs and every ounce of will-power within her. Her body wanted to die, but her mind wouldn’t let it. Nine strides from the post, anyone of three others looked the winner. Igugu lunged at them, Bravura turned his head to look at her. His eye seemed to change. One should suspect humans who carelessly put words into the mouths of animals, but it seemed as if Bravura was saying “oh no, not you again”. When he dismounted after the race, Anton Marcus, who was riding Bravura, put it another way:

“I had her beaten, but if you’re dealing with Igugu, it’s always only half-over”. Igugu won by a growing neck.

The crowd gave Igugu a standing ovation as she passed the post, with the yellow lights of the infield timing board showing she’d equalled the long-standing record, which meant Bravura must’ve come close too. But it was Igugu’s day, she owned Kenilworth as no horse had since Empress Club. Ever so briefly, the sport had returned to its most glorious days. Wave after wave of cheering rushed over sunny Kenilworth, the horses and jockeys were exhausted. It had all been too brave.

In the public mind, Sheikh Mohammed had been transformed. Before the arrival of Igugu, he was known as one of those rich blokes with hundreds of horses, a distant and regal figure, which is unfair when you know him. He’d never tried to be anything but what he was, his family had come from the land of the Bedouin, and they’d started out with a few camels, goats and not much else. Of course there’s been oil and much more since then, but now, and mainly because of Igugu, like his partner Andre Macdonald, Sheikh Mohammed was a folk hero, a good bloke, just like the rest of us.

That’s what a Summerhill horse can do for you. See you at Block A, TBA Sales Complex, the rest of this week.

Enquiries :
Tarryn Liebenberg 27 (0) 83 787 1982
or email tarryn@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

MAHUBO : THE HYMN SINGER

NYS Lot 231 Highly Decorated (Captain Al - Spring Garland)
(Photo : Leigh Willson)

Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale
TBA Sales Complex, Germiston, South Africa
27 - 29 April 2012

Any Stakes victory against international competition in a foreign country is a story worth telling, but this one happened at Aqueduct in New York, and there’s no pushover Stakes race in the Big Apple.

Mahubo (which means “hymns” in Zulu) was chalking up his 5^th career victory in the Three Coins Up Stakes (Listed) over 1 1/16^th mile at the fabled race track, claiming his first bold Black type after placing third as a maiden in a juvenile Group Three some years back. He was a little fellow, afflicted as a weanling with a viral setback which left him and another accomplished youngster, stripped of all recognisable condition. He recovered though, almost miraculously, in time for the National Sale, and turned up there a smart but little fellow with more than a bit of character. In the end, nobody wanted him though, and he was brought home and prepared for the Emperors Palace Ready To Run. By November, he’d told us he had the makings of a racehorse, and he fell to a R900,000 bid by Herman Brown Jnr on behalf of the internationally renowned Dr. Jim Hay and his wife, Fitri, of Cape Blanco, Fame And Glory and Traffic Guard fame.

Mahubo gave glimpses of his talent again at three with a classy fourth in the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup, South Africa’s third richest horserace, before setting off for Dubai, where he was once again victorious at their Racing Carnival. We’d lost trace of him since, until Saturday morning, when we received news courtesy of the TDN of his courageous effort in New York. His big win is a tribute to the enterprise of Jim Hay, who sent him Stateside to the yard of Kiaran McLaughlin after his stint in the desert, and gave him the chance to be what he’d been bred to be.

Mahubo’s story is quite extraordinary, given where his mom came from. Garden Verse arrived at Summerhill with a broken hip and no race record, and was put out to run with the cows, when she first came home. Today, she could keep an accountant busy for days, totting up the millions her offspring have generated at the sales and the races. One of them, Imbongi (the “praise-singer” in Zulu) was an international globe-trotter with a Voyager Platinum card. Besides being the top South African miler of his generation, he chalked up Graded Stakes victories in Dubai and the United Kingdom via Hong Kong, and was the earnings victor ludorum at the 2010 Dubai Racing Carnival. In all, he raked in some R8million in earnings, not bad for another unwanted urchin of the sales ring, who was eventually sold to Ronnie Napier and Michael Fleischer following a private gallop at the foot of the farm on a Saturday morning. Between them, Mahubo and Imbongi have an illustrious sister, Spring Garland, a multiple Group winner for Gary Alexander, whose victories included the prestigious Gerald Rosenberg Stakes (Gr.2,) one of the best weight-for-age races for fillies in South Africa.

A nice touch all of this, some might say, but Summerhill is somehow a farm before it’s a business, only as good as its current batch of runners, and what it puts back into the land and its people. Spring Garland’s first foal is a stand-out representative by Captain Al, in this year’s Summerhill National Yearling Sales draft.

Enquiries :
Tarryn Liebenberg 27 (0) 83 787 1982
or email tarryn@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

MAKERS OF OUR MODERN HISTORY

The Closed Society
(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

“THE CLOSED SOCIETY”

Whenever we stage an event at Summerhill, we convene a debriefing session afterwards, a kind of post-mortem, on the ups-and-downs, the good and the not-so- good, the keeps and the discards. We won’t bother you with the details, but one thing is clear, our customers have voted with their feet. They love a Ready To Run sale, mainly because so many good horses have come from there, they cost substantially less to keep, and your prospects of finding a runner are so much better.

Yes, the venue for the “Summer” version was terrific, Hartford’s food and wine were excellent, the timing was perfect, and if we may say so, our marketing reached a good audience. There’s a fundamental basis though, to the success of the Ready To Run, and it lies in the education of the horses, the faith they have in their handlers and the lessons they’ve had, settling their temperaments and using their actions to best advantage. It takes years to assemble a quality team in any field of endeavour, and the horse business is no different. It’s especially exacting when it comes to recruiting young riders, people with the patience and the hands and the raw talent to take a racehorse through kindergarten. These guys come from a different world, the “chopper pilots” of the horse game, a breed of their own that lives on the edge.

At Summerhill, the Ready To Run youngsters are housed in three locations, little principalities of their own, places of hope and despair, depending on how this or that horse is going. The “jockeys”, as we know them, occupy a murky world which starts hours before dawn, in the pitch dark, when the night is so still, so windless, you can almost hear the branches talking to each other in the avenues of trees that demarcate these places from the rest of the farm. At that time of the morning, nothing is happening in little old Mooi River, just a few kilometres away, where people won’t start arriving for work for another three or four hours. Normal people work there.

Here at Summerhill, the members of the Closed Society are going through a routine that’s hundreds of years old, and is barely changed. The lights are on in the principalities. You hear the swish of brooms, the sounds of strappers talking softly to horses, of water buckets being filled, the thud of straw hitting concrete, the footfalls of horses on their way to the track. This side of town has a smell of its own: a cocktail of horse hair and of sweat on rugs and saddle blankets, of urine on straw, the bittersweet aroma of eragrostis hay.

As the first string departs the yard, the atmosphere is vibrant and alive. This is the essence of the kindergarten. What you see on race days doesn’t come quite as close to the soul you see out here, where there is no need for affectation, because everyone is an insider. The men on board are educators, not race riders, members of a private, patient profession, where bumps and spills are all part of a day’s work. If there’s a gambler in the Summerhill team, you’ll find him in the Closed Society Monday to Friday, and on weekends, he’ll be hanging around the Tote in town, trading his “insider” instincts for hard currency.

It’s in these principalities that you discover whether a horse is a trier or a mongrel, and where horses are taught the rules: follow the rail, no pig-rooting or u-turns, stretch out when clicked up, the routines and the rituals, cross-tying in the stalls and hosing down with cold water.

Here, in the half-light is an old sport, an old picture, an idiom heavy with gallows humour and rhyming slang, understood only by insiders. There is talk of toffs and “tea leaves”, gents and bludgers, flying machines and cockroaches and centipedes. Other sports aren’t like this; footballers and cricketers train in the bright light of day, the public can go along and watch what is going on. Conventional English is spoken.

In a few hours, the sun is up and the third string is on parade. In the clear light, parts of the original Summerhill take on the air of a lovely old farm “let go” by the fourth generation. It is loaded with history, but if you look closely, you will find spots where the paint is peeling. It’s not through neglect though, it’s to do with time. When the Ready To Run is on, there’s precious little of that, because the detail has been spared for the horses.

That’s the “closed society” for you, the people that carry the secrets to the athletes they sit on, that know and understand the mysteries that make a good racehorse. These are the people our customers go to these days for the inside track, for the stories that inspire their investments, and the legends that are the bedrock of our folklore. That’s where Igugu and Pierre Jourdan came from, and Imbongi, Paris Perfect, Fisani and Hear The Drums, among the makers of our modern history.

Enquiries :
Tarryn Liebenberg 27 (0) 83 787 1982
or email tarryn@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

HEY BOET, GET YOURSELF A BOMBER!

Emperors Palace
Summer Ready To Run Sale
Summerhill Stud, 22 February 2012

Those that were left behind at Summerhill, have done the talking for us.
Unwanted in the sales ring, they sold off the farm. And they spoke well.

PARIS PERFECT
R5.5 million earner in 3 countries
Cost R65,000

BOLD ELLINORE
Equus Champion
Cost R60,000

VANGELIS
Millionaire
Cost R75,000

EMPEROR NAPOLEON
Millionaire
Cost R60,000

HEAR THE DRUMS
Winningmost racehorse in history
Cost R42,000

AMPHITHEATRE
Champion Stayer and Millionaire
Cost R30,000

IMBONGI
Group Winner 3 countries
Cost R140,000

YOU SEE BOET, CAN STILL GET LUCKY.

Enquiries :
Tarryn Liebenberg 27 (0) 83 787 1982
or email tarryn@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

SUMMER READY TO RUN SALE : DEPTH CHARGE

EMPERORS PALACE
SUMMER READY TO RUN SALE
22 February 2012

The measure of anything in the horse business lies in quality and in the context of a horse sale, in the depth of the catalogue. Last February, Summerhill inaugurated its first Summer Ready To Run Sale, largely for the horses it would normally sell off the farm, horses which for whatever reason, were unable to get to the spring Ready To Run in November. Among those that remained behind over the years were the R8 million earner Imbongi, R5 million accumulator Paris Perfect, ATM “machine” Bold Ellinore, millionaire brother Emperor Napoleon, South Africa’s winning-most racehorse ever, Hear The Drums, and another ace millionaire, Vangelis. A rich harvest you might say, in the arid thoughts of those who might’ve believed that these were the “left-overs”.

There’s been many a horse emerging from these paddocks with little but the fact he could run to recommend him, not much in the way of family, not much to look at, and many of the imperfections the purists would shun. Those that would turn their backs on that horse would need to remember where he comes from, though. The roll of those we’ve just mentioned, reminds us of the jewels you can plumb if you thrust your hand deep enough into the last vestiges of the Summerhill barrel.

Last year, our team took an experimental draft to the Horses-In-Training sale at Shongweni, and it was a bit of a bloodbath. Buyers should’ve known better : there’s always something worthwhile in any assembly of Summerhill horses, and that’s the way it turned out. At R50,000, Sithela turned out a bit of a star, marching off with two in succession, including a stunning victory over two Group One performers in the Sophomore Sprint, only to be robbed of certain favouritism for the R2million Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup in a fatal accident. Besides Sithela, Scat Alley (R40,000) couldn’t have been more impressive in her debut victory for Louis Goosen; Michael Miller and The Baroness Bergsma got every bit of their purchase consideration and a lot more back, when I Got You Babe (R7,000) trotted up by 2.5 lengths; and Alesh Naidoo, Ashwin Govender and Paul Lafferty got more than they bargained for when Kahal’s daughter, Equivalence (R15,000) spanked them on the New Year’s weekend on her third racecourse appearance. And then there’s Gida, Wendy Whitehead’s R35,000 purchase, who pricked some ears with a rattling 2^nd on only his 2^nd trip to the races. He’s favourite this weekend.

All of that, though can hardly compare to this year’s catalogue, on the face of it at least. Here’s a taste of it here :

• Kahal colt ex Coastal Waltz (dam East Cape Horse Of The Year, and winner of ten).
• Kahal filly ex Deal A Double (first foal of a five-time winning sister to three Group winners).
• Mullins Bay ex Dignify (dam is a Golden Slipper (Gr.1) winning sister to J&B Met ace, Angus.
• Cataloochee filly ex Excess (dam is a sister to two Black type performers, from the immediate family of two of Europe’s best fillies of 2011, Dancing Rain (English Oaks Gr.1) and Together (Moyglare Stakes Gr.1).
• Kahal filly ex Glitz (sister to Nondweni, from the family of a former Ready To Run star and champion Imperial Dispatch).
• Cataloochee filly ex Lady Red (first foal of a Group performing 5 time winner).
• Mullins Bay colt ex Lotti (dam is a Stakes winner and her first foal is a three time visitor to the winner’s circle).
• Mullins Bay filly ex Nordic Air (sister to champion race filly, Icy Air and current Charles Laird star, Ice Axe).
• Stronghold filly ex Rainbow Ridge (dam is sister to champion Amphitheatre, from the immediate family of Icy Air and Ice Axe).
• Stronghold colt ex Shiyabekala (dam is a sister to J&B Met hero, Angus, and Golden Slipper (Gr.1) heroine Dignify.
• Stronghold filly ex Tribute (sister to Stuart Pettigrew’s star turn, Salutation, family of Premier’s Classic hero, Last Watch).
• Way West colt ex While Rome Burns (dam is a sister to Amphitheatre, from the family of Icy Air and Ice Axe).
• Kahal filly ex Longfields (sister to Thekweni Stakes (Gr.1) winner, Bridal Paths, in turn sister to Group One multi millionaire, Pick Six.

Enquiries :
Tarryn Liebenberg +27 (0) 83 787 1982
or email tarryn@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za