SHOOTOUT AT THE OK CORRAL

Shongweni Horses-In-Training and Ready To Run Sale
(Photo : Gareth du Plessis)

SHONGWENI
HORSES-IN-TRAINING
AND READY TO RUN SALE 2011

The international news channels are rather depressing at the moment, dominated day and night by the bloodbaths occurring in the Arab world. Yesterday we witnessed something similar at the Shongweni Horses-In-Training and Ready To Run sale. Top price of the day was the Galileo filly, Insasa, who fell to the bid of long-time Summerhill clients, Denis and Gael Evans, who will be retiring her to stud at the farm once her racing career is over. Beautifully bred, she’s a R1,5 million Emperors Palace Ready To Run sales graduate, and obviously retained a measure of residual value because of her illustrious pedigree. Her sire is regularly quoted as being the best in the world, while her dam is a sister to the Australian Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr.3) hero and leading first crop sire in South Africa last season, Way West, and she attracted a final bid of R360,000.

Next top price was the Summerhill entry in the Ready To Run section, the son of Silvano out of the Fort Wood mare, Icy Thunder, who made R200,000, while a Kahal filly out of Princess Sassi, also from our draft, made R180,000.

Otherwise, the news was somewhat bleak, with some horses selling at prices we last witnessed in the 1990’s. One thing’s for sure, there’ll be a number of customers this time next year, telling us what geniuses they were in picking these horses at the prices they paid. You need to be philosophical in these circumstances, and put it down to the school fees you pay when developing a new sale, and to the advertising value which they’ll represent for next year’s event.

Talking of sales, the Summerhill team, Mick Goss, Kerry Jack and Tarryn Liebenberg, depart today for the Melbourne Premier Sale, in the hope they can repeat the formula that gave us two of the best three-year-old fillies of recent times, Hollywoodboulevard and Igugu. There’ll be news from Melbourne in the days ahead.

INSASA BY GALILEO : A PEDIGREE FOR THE FUTURE

Click above to watch Insasa (Aus) winning her maiden
(Image and Footage : Tellytrack)

INSASA (AUS)
2008 SUMMERHILL READY TO RUN GRADUATE

INSASA (Aus) (Galileo (Ire) x Tantalum Fever (Aus))
4 Year Old Chestnut Filly
Owners : Mike Azzie, Sharon Azzie, Taso Christoforou, Oscar Pistorius, Rodney Thorpe, Roger Zeeman, C Castro, J Strathoussis, Mr and Mrs EP Wobbes, Summerhill Stud Syndicate (Nom : Mick Goss)
Trainer : Mike Azzie
Jockey : JP van der Merwe
Breeder : Rydell Bloodstock Pty Ltd, Vic & Martrack Pty Ltd
Win Time : 101.54
Career Record : 1 Win, 4 Starts

INSASA is a daughter of English champion sire Galileo. Her dam is a half-sister to Summerhill Stud’s exciting young stallion Way West, while her third dam is the accomplished Annoconnor, a triple Gr1 winning daughter of Nureyev and half-sister to Melbourne Cup hero At Talaq.

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

COMPUTAFORM MAIDEN PLATE (F&M)
Vaal Sand 1600m
17 August 2010

#	LBH	Horse	Kg	MR	Dr	Jockey	Trainer
1	0.00	INSASA (AUS)	58.0	0	1	*J P v’d Merwe	Mike Azzie
2	2.00	ATONEMENT	55.0	80	5	P Strydom	Romeo Francis
3	7.00	BEAT OF BEETHOVEN	58.0	54	8	G Figueroa	Wallace Tolmay
4	7.75	UMHLANGA ROCKS	58.0	61	12	R Simons	Ian Jayes
5	10.50	BABARAN	55.0	0	10	F Herholdt	David rahilly
6	11.00	NATIONAL DANZIG	58.0	44	9	B Lerena	Tyrone Zackey
7	12.25	DANZIG’S FLAG	58.0	48	2	G Lerena	Wallace Tolmay
8	17.75	EARLY RISER	58.0	0	3	A Fortune	St John Gray
9	18.50	ANGEL BELLS	58.0	0	7	P Whitmore	Terry Lowe
10	21.00	SHIP’S LANTERN (ZIM)	58.0	60	4	F Naude	Dianne Stenger
11	22.00	QUIET STORM	58.0	0	6	*E Pheiffer (1.5)	Brett Webber
12	99.99	TOYS FOR THE BOYZ	58.0	38	11	G Wrogemann	Paul Peter
	Late Scratchings
13	0.00	AMARILLO	58.0	54	10	T Pretorius	Reid Paterson

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