THE FUTURE IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Visionaire (USA)
(Photo : Greig Muir)

“If you’re not part of the process itself,
you’re going to be left behind.”

Mick Goss
(Summerhill CEO)There are not too many of us left who remember the Great Depression of the late 20s and early 30s, so the financial turmoil the world has landed itself in the last five years is, for most people, a unique phenomenon. In business talk, not so long ago we used to plan in 3-5 year cycles; these days, the rate of change is such that if you’re not part of the process itself, you’re going to be left behind.

It’s understandable in times like these, that horsemen should bet on the tried and tested. Which means that when it comes to stallions and their progeny, buyers look with greater comfort at the stock of the proven sire, rather than those of the up-and-coming.

At the same time, it’s a fact that all of Northern Guest, Foveros, Western Winter, Fort Wood and Jet Master, had first crops, and those with the enterprise to follow their intuitions, were the ones that cashed in. By the very nature of things, renewal is part of the process by which the world works, and whatever the state of the nation’s stallion play, we need to remind ourselves that there’s always a new generation waiting in the wings. Those that rely more on memory than on vision, are driving in the rear view mirror.

It’s been our observation over more than three decades in the horse business, that in good economic times, players are more inclined towards adventure; they’re more likely to gamble on unfamiliar territory than when austerity is the watchword. It’s our guess that we’re in the in-between faze right now, where financial indicators are telling us that the planet is slowly getting back on its feet, and for those who are in the breeding business, this may be a signal to revise our strategies.

Talking of vision, just yesterday, our new signing, Visionaire, delivered up his first runner and at the same time his first winner, the filly She Is Tango, by a scorching five lengths. And if the odd reports we’re getting from elsewhere in the United States of others from his first small crop are anything to go by, it seems we may be in for a bit of cooking.

None of us should be surprised though. Visionaire was one of the very best winners in recent years of America’s premier stallion-maker, the King’s Bishop Stakes (G1) at historic Saratoga, his last-to-first destruction of the fastest 3-year-olds of his year, stamping him a generation leader. Among America’s contemporary stallion luminaries, are the names of Distorted Humor, More Than Ready and Hard Spun, all of whom distinguished themselves in the King’s Bishop, and if they haven’t already claimed a championship, they’re bang in line for one.

So, if you’re still of a conservative disposition and believe the tried-and-tested route is your preference, Visionaire’s just given you the “heads-up” for a hell of a lot less than you’d have to pay for those of the older generation.

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

NATIONAL YEARLING SALE CONCLUDES WITH IMPRESSIVE STATS

Top Priced Filly - Summerhill-consigned lot 330 PURELY ATOMIC (Encosta de Lago - Catching Moonbeams)
(Photo : Leigh Willson)

EMPERORS PALACE NATIONAL YEARLING SALE
TBA Sales Complex, Gosforth Park, South Africa
26 - 28 April 2013

Sunday evening saw the 2013 Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale draw to a close. The two day sale, which started on Friday morning, ended with both aggregate and average well up on last year’s sale.

The 2013 sale’s aggregate was up from R84,730,000 to R122,468,000 this year. The average also improved from R234,061 to R297,976 - a healthy jump of 27%. Lots not sold remained pretty much the same as last year, increasing by just one from 45 to 46 unsold.

Top priced lot on the sale was lot 263 a Dynasty colt, consigned by Drakenstein Stud. Out of the Grade 1 winning mare Wonderful World, the colt, named Trees of Green was sold to Mayfair Speculators for R3,600,000. The sales topper is one of the highest in the history of the National Sale, and was well up on last year’s top priced yearling - which cost R1,700,000.

A daughter of champion Australian sire, Encosta De Lago, was the sale’s top priced filly. Catalogued as lot 330, the unnamed filly, who is out of a Danehill mare, was consigned by Summerhill Stud (as Property of a Partnership). She was purchased by Wilgerbosdrift, and, no doubt, will prove a very valuable broodmare prospect later on.

Leading vendors at the sale, by aggregate was Varsfontein Stud, whose 24 lots to sell amassed R8,540,000. Top vendor, by average (3 or more sold) was Klipdrif Stud who sold three yearlings for the impressive individual average of R1,256,667.

Form Bloodstock were the sale’s top buyers by aggregate. The agency signed for 18 lots which grossed R11,125,000. Form also combined with Shadwell to purchase five lots for R5,850,000.

Lot 503, a magnificent chestnut colt by Trippi was knocked down to top Cape trainer Dean Kannemeyer for R3,000,000.

Locally bred sires dominated the list of top sires. The late, great Jet Master, was the sale’s top sire by aggregate. The local legend, who was selling his last crop, sold 24 yearlings for a total of R16,140,000. Jet Master’s final crop to pass through the National Sale ring averaged R672,500.

The latter was also top sire by average (3 or more sold), with his 24 yearlings averaging a very healthy R672,500.

TBA’s CEO Tom Callaghan was delighted by the sale’s solid, middle market. He said, “The aggregate was up an incredible 44% - although we did sell 49 more horses than last year. I was especially pleased to see that the median reached R200,000 - an increase of 33%. The overall strong middle market is very much in line with international results, and we were delighted to welcome some of the industry’s true icons to the sale.”

Full lists of results and statistics for the sale are available online.

Keep up with the latest news from Bloodstock South Africa on www.tba.co.za or interact on twitter/bloodstocksa1 and facebook.com/tbaofsa.

Extracts from Bloodstock South Africa

NATIONAL YEARLING SALE DAY 1 CLOSES POSITIVE

Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale Day 1
(Photo : KZN Breeders)

EMPERORS PALACE NATIONAL YEARLING SALE
TBA Sales Complex, Gosforth Park, South Africa
Day 1 - 26 April 2013

The first day of the 2013 Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale ended on a high; with the aggregate, average and median prices all up from last year. The day’s topper was one of the highest in the sale’s history, behind only the R4,000,000 spent on Divine Jet in 2010 and R3,600,000 for Potala Palace at the same year. Despite fewer lots sold than last year (from 201 to 182) the aggregate on day one jumped to R55,320,000 from 2012’s total of R45,190,000. The average price rose from R224,826 to R303,956 this year.

Lots not sold increased in 2013 to 30 from 17 last year, but the session’s top price of R3,400,000 was well up on last year’s top priced lot which fetched R1,250,000.

It was noticeable that the day’s trading got off to a slow start, but prices picked up gradually and steadily through the day.

The first day was topped by lot 233, who was sold to Shadwell South Africa for R3,400,000. Consigned by Klipdrif Stud, the colt is from the final crop of multiple champion sire Jet Master. Named Master’s Spirit, the colt is the second foal of Grade 1 winner Urabamba (Fort Wood).

Top priced filly on day one was a daughter of Argentinian sire Easing Along, who was knocked down for R900,000. The unnamed filly was consigned by Wilgerbosdrift, and was purchased by Mayfair Speculators.

TBA’s CEO Tom Callaghan was ecstatic with the outcome of the sale, commenting, “This was an exceptional sale, and the sales’ results are in line with standard international results. The average was up by 39%, and there was quality money for quality horses. Buyers have become more discerning. There was excellent support from some of racing’s real icons, but thanks must go out to the breeders who have supported the sale so well.”

The TBA’s Jan Naude was also well pleased with the day’s outcome, saying, “Despite a slow start, the sale ended with improved figures from last year. This was a great result, as there were fewer horses sold. I hope the positive trend continues on Sunday. Come early - we start at 10!”

A full list of results and statistics for day one is now available on the Bloodstock South Africa website.

Extract from Bloodstock South Africa

www.tba.co.za

EBONY FLYER TO BE BRED TO GALILEO IN 2013

Ebony Flyer
(Photo : Action Racing Online)

EBONY FLYER (SAF)
Jet Master - Sunshine Lover

Classic Cape Fillies Guineas heroine, Ebony Flyer, will enter quarantine next week in Cape Town before being shipped to Ireland in May 2013 for a Southern Hemisphere date next fall at Coolmore Stud with the world’s leading sire Galileo.

Co-owner and manager Barry Irwin finalized plans on Wednesday with Coolmore Stud farm manager Christy Grassick.

Ebony Flyer was as brilliant as she was consistent, winning three Grade 1 races in South Africa, in spite of having to undergo two throat operations to correct a problem with her wind.

The Jet Master mare’s best race came against South African Horse of the Year, Igugu in the summer at 3 when she remained unbeaten by winning the Grade 1 Cape Fillies Guineas over a mile at Kenilworth. Earlier this year the 17-hands-plus mare showed how versatile she was in beating a top class field to win the Grade 1 South African Fillies Sprint at Scottsville racecourse. Also earlier this year, she won the Grade 1 Majorca Stakes over a mile at Kenilworth.

Ebony Flyer retires with a record in 13 starts of 8 wins and only 2 unplaced efforts in a career that saw her finish first or second in 10 of 13 efforts racing at 2, 3, 4 and 5. She raced for Barry Irwin’s Team Valor International, Mrs. Gaynor Rupert of Drakenstein Stud and Anant and Vanashree Singh of Durban.

Irwin had bought an older half-sister to Ebony Flyer for $27,000 as a yearling in South Africa named Captain’s Lover. Before that filly became a Champion at 3, a Classic winner, a Grade 1 winner and a major winner in South Africa, France and the United States, Irwin bought Ebony Flyer at her dam’s side.

Sunshine Lover, Ebony Flyer’s dam, made international history by having her first two foals to race both become Classic winners by taking the Grade 1 Cape Fillies Guineas.

As part of a business plan of the partnership that owns Sunshine Lover, Ebony Flyer was offered at the Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale in Germiston, South Africa, where Irwin bought her for his own account. Irwin then formed a syndicate to race her and just before the Guineas sold a significant interest to Mrs. Rupert, who also now owns Champion Captain’s Lover on an equal basis with Team Valor International.

Extract from Team Valor International

STALLIONS : STATS AND FACTS

John Messara
(Photo : Racing NSW)

“Data comes in all sorts of forms,
and because there’s new history being made every day in racing,
it’s constantly evolving.”

Time was when stud masters judged stallions on intuition, and breeders mated their mares on a cocktail of gut feel, dosages, and the assignment of numbers to female families, cosmology, rattlesnakes and a potion of magic elixirs. Quite amazingly, and despite the mountain of scientific data and the genetic advancements science had made, racehorse producers have long displayed a preference for the myths and urban legends this mystical beast has generated over centuries, in deciding where to send their mares.

It’s a comparatively recent development (successfully exploited by Australia’s John Messara, a man who unsurprisingly came from a financial and stockbroking background,) that analytics first made its appearance in our world. In Messara’s case, you need only look at the history of his Arrowfield Stud, to know that it works. He was the man behind Danehill and his three champion sire sons, Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur and Danzero, and let’s not forget, he also bred Zabeel, who alongside his sire Sir Tristram, is without peer among the greatest stallions New Zealand has known.

At Summerhill, we rely on a whole lot of inputs in arriving at our mating strategies. We look at the broodmare and her history in an attempt to assess the character she produces, we consult with trainers, jockeys and our own staff to get their impressions of the family and/or the sires’ progeny. We have the marvellous advantage of working with the offspring of both parents in our Ready To Run Programme, and that teaches you a host of things about their constitutions, their minds, how they move and how quickly they learn. We employ our intuitions, directed at soundness, temperament and the likely physical outcome in a mating of specimens. And then, like Messara, we consult data, reams of it.

Data comes in all sorts of forms, and because there’s new history being made every day in racing, it’s constantly evolving. So it doesn’t matter that it’s the end of the breeding season, these things are of interest 24/7, and when they’re of value, you can be sure this team’s alert to them. Just recently, Broodmare Manager, Annet Becker updated our stats on some of the more established stallions in the land, and this is what they look like:

South African Stallions Lifetime Stats

*Up to and including foals born in 2009.

There are a couple of interesting numbers emerging from the update. Clearly, there is a soundness correlation among those sires that generate the most runners from foals and their percentage winners. Significantly, Kahal and National Emblem, who produced the bulk of their runners whilst at Summerhill, are rivalled only by Western Winter in their percentage of horses which get to the track. That might have something to with environment and management, as it is borne out by a broader set of figures covering the progeny of all sires at Summerhill. Western Winter, Fort Wood, Dynasty and Silvano are by some distance the most consistent getters of Stakes winners (exclude Trippi in this case, because he’s only had the one crop, and while his numbers are astonishing, they need to be repeated over a period of time). You might have thought Jet Master’s percentage Stakes winners would be higher, but quite clearly, his great attribute is his ability to get the very big horse, which he’s done more regularly than any other of his contemporaries.

Our readers are invited to comment on these numbers, and to ask whatever questions you wish. We have the data, and we can present these numbers however you want, so let’s hear from you. Have a great KwaZulu week if you’re in our vicinity - there’s a bit of warmth about at last, and our conception rates have climbed dramatically in the last few weeks.

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