ENVY : REFUGE OF THE LOSER

Equus Champion Breeder Trophies
2005 - 2009
(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

Please click photo to enlarge

It is so that Summerhill and its many clients have just garnered their fifth consecutive National Breeder’s title. It is also an irrefutable fact that we did so by almost doubling the earnings of our nearest pursuer, excellent producers of racehorses in their own right. It’s not our practice, as those who know us well will attest, to gloat over these things, and we prefer to be gracious in victory, just as we’ve always been in defeat. However, from the time we displayed our effectiveness at this business, there’ve been those that would put us down, and who, despite the repeat of our latest championship, are unable to accept the merit of it. They persist with the belief that numbers, and numbers alone, have made it possible. It’s time for a response:

• There’s an old saying (the Afrikaans version of the “tall poppy” syndrome) that “die hoogste boom vang die meeste wind”, and for our foreign visitors, that means “the tallest tree catches the most wind”. That goes with the territory, and we accept it as our lot; that’s why you so seldom see any attempt at self-justification in these columns. Yet that doesn’t mean we should simply lie down and die. Our fans deserve to know the facts.
• Ever since the origin of racing’s championships, numbers have mattered, and if you look at the history of South African breeding, and those who’ve dominated, you’ll find it has been no different. The Birch Bros, one of the six entities to have held the title in all its history, are reputed to have won something approaching sixty times, yet their earnings (which is the basis for calculating the champion stud) were the sum of the contributions of three different families who traded under the name of Birch Brothers. The renowned Koster Bros earned their championships the same way, with contributions from the stock raised by several families. That shouldn’t detract from the undeniable truth that they bred a damn good horse, and plenty of them. We are a single entity, for what it’s worth, which had the necessity (and the enterprise, if we may say so,) to draw a broader church into our activities.
• Ominously for Summerhill, this season Klawervlei Stud are anticipating the arrival of the order of 240 foals, all of which will be registered as Klawerveli breds, almost double the number we’re anticipating foaling in the name of Summerhill. These, in the end, are overwhelming numbers, and how else could you meet that challenge, but through doing your level best and perhaps doing things differently, as we always have, and to a degree, by having the numbers. At last week’s gala function, in a magnanimous address as recipient of the Owner of The Year award, Klawervlei’s “senior partner”, Markus Jooste gave notice that they had their sights firmly on Summerhill’s title!.
• What our detractors overlook is that, despite the export of the five top runners from this farm at the end of last season, we managed to achieve our Championship with earnings per runner not far short of R60 000, a figure which would’ve been significantly enhanced had the exports been retained on South African soil, contesting our best races. We speak of course, of the outstanding international performers of the past season, Imbongi, Art Of War, Paris Perfect, as well as Galant Gagnant and Desert Links, whose absence affected either our numbers or those of their sires (or both), to a marked degree. Two of them were not officially bred by Summerhill, but we’re proud to say they were graduates of our paddocks, and together with the Group One winning filly, Outcome (similarly bred here, but not under our banner), they signalled to the world the ongoing quality emerging from Summerhill. That we achieved this result with the “second” string, makes this year’s title all the more satisfying.
• Equally, in a recent observation on soundness, Robin Bruss pointed to the fact that Summerhill has the highest number of starts per horse in training, it’s worth adding that in recent seasons, we’ve been represented by the nation’s leading seven and eight year olds; Nhlavini (who holds the record of six consecutive appearances as a finalist at the Equus Awards), Red Carpet Style and Brigadier Parker, all of whom were Stakes winners in their dotage years. And right now, in fact this last weekend, Hear The Drums endorsed the durability of our graduates with his 26th victory, making him the winning-most racehorse in South Africa in the past thirty years.

It’s easy to point fingers, but there are other means of achieving their own satisfaction for our critics, and that is to get on and make their own mark through the establishment of their own standards of excellence. That way, they’ll earn their personal fulfilment, and have less to worry about in the success of others. Just last month, Fortune magazine carried the stories of the twenty most successful Americans of the past few decades, and the best advice they had received. While we’ll provide a little more in time in the way of insights from these icons, it’s worth noting that Bill Gates emphasized the value of fanaticism (saying that it was underrated as a force in success), and that both he and Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, were fanatical about certain things; Colin Powell speculated on the value of a work ethic, and what it took to become a successful general, and in the context of this article, perhaps the most sage advice came from Scott Boras.

Boras is one of the most successful managers of sportsmen and celebrities of all time, and he related a story of the advice he received from his counsellor following victory in a court case at an early stage in his career.

“You will find,” opined the counsellor, “that if you are especially effective at what you do, 95% of what is said about you will be negative”. We didn’t realise that things were that tough in our game, but if those that swipe at our championship are anywhere near those odds, we take it as a compliment.

REBEL KING RETIRES TO STUD

“The Rebel goes to Pasture”

A chat with a wise man of Charles Laird’s ilk is as worthwhile an exercise as anything you can do in racing. Here is a professional whose family association with Summerhill goes back decades, and he’s not leading the Trainers’ Log by R4 million for nothing. The latest conversation with him was a “bitter-sweet” affair, as it involved some promising young horses, and the departure of the stalwart, Summerhill-bred Rebel King, who’s just left the yard to take up stud duties at Klawervlei Stud in the Western Cape.

Rebel King was a genuine Charles Laird affair, his father National Emblem having been one of the very best horses ever to pass through the Laird stable in either his father Russell’s or his own time, out of a mare trained by Charles, Cousin Linda. Rebel King was an admirable performer, unfortunate to be born in the era of four of South Africa’s best exponents of the art of speed, starting off with National Colour, Mythical Flight, War Artist and latterly JJ The Jet Plane. That he was always seen as the arch opponent by any one of the handlers of these horses, is a compliment enough to this grand animal.

Yet he finally got his moment of glory in the Cape Flying Championship (Gr.1) in January of this year, followed by a weight-defying knockout punch in the Senor Santa (Gr.2), and was just denied by a diminishing nose in last month’s Computaform Sprint (Gr.1). He’ll be hard to oppose for the title of Champion Sprinter of the 2009 Season, yet he seemed to have at his mercy a race of the ilk of the Mercury Sprint (Gr.1) in which he previously finished second to War Artist, having disposed of his nemesis Mythical Flight, on the way.

Of course, Kahal’s yearling half-brother to Rebel King was the subject last month of a protracted bidding duel between two intimately connected fellows at the National Yearling Sale, in which Uncle Tommy (as he was named) turned out the top priced horse of the entire auction. The protagonists ? Breeder of his mother (Graham Beck, who prevailed in the end), and the previous owner of his mother, Markus Jooste, the two“El Padrinos” of the game.

The El Padrino’s of the Game

(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

Emperors Palace National Yearling Sales 2009

If you’re a Summerhill devotee, you’d have to be more than satisfied at this weekend’s events. Both the top colt and top filly of the sale, were graduates of our draft. With IMBONGI’s sister, a stunning daughter of debutante sire, SOLSKJAER, bewitching the attention of no less an investor than Team Valor’s Barry Irwin, who had to fend off two bouts of international competition to claim his prize at R1.5million.

In as classic an event as any breeder could wish for, three “patron saints” of the game clashed in a mighty battle for the right to own UNCLE TOMMY, a strikingly good-looking son of KAHAL, and half brother to aspiring Sprint champion, REBEL KING.

The early stages witnessed a sparring match between the incorrigible Markus Jooste and his right-hand man, Charles Laird, located high up and out of sight, in what might be called the ”Gods”, an appropriate station for two men who wagered as much as they did on the day’s trade.

Just outside the Equine Insurance cubicle, Mike de Kock took up position for Dubai’s Deputy Ruler, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, whose eagerness to acquire this son of his own stallion, was evidenced in the rapidity with which Mike answered Charles Laird’s bidding.

The time came though when Mike called it a day, and just as it looked as though the Jooste team might fire the winning salvo, POCKET POWER’S conditioner Mike Bass, joined the fray with a determination that looked likely to prevail. And prevail it did. But not without one helluva scrap, as the two teams traded their way through the R2million barrier and onwards to R2.4million.

So who was it behind Mike Bass? No less a man than one of the EL PADRINO’S of the game, Graham Beck, who has terrorised under-bidders for decades now. These two, Jooste and Beck, have ascended the stairs to the loftiest of stations, willing to put their money and their reputations on the line for the sake of a racehorse, and the honour of beating all-comers when the chips are down.

In the end that’s what this sport is all about, and it’s thanks to them that the drama of the sales ring remains one of the most exhilarating contests of our game.

GRAHAM BECK SECURES TOP KAHAL

“We toasted the town, the team, and our buyers with a couple bottles of Graham Beck Brut…”

“BIG SALE DIARIES” - Part 2

Uncle Tommy (Kahal out of Cousin Linda, half brother to Rebel King) did us proud yesterday, topping the first and second sessions with a heart-stopping, whopping R2.4million bid by Mike Bass for Graham Beck. Underbidders Mike de Kock and Markus Jooste carried him there, and our partners Mike and Marty Meredith, Mick and the team were ecstatic. In a fairly solid session we also sold, among others, Matara Garden (Solskjaer out of Garden Verse, half sister to Imbongi and Spring Garland) for R1.5million to Barry Irwin’s Team Valor.

We toasted the town, the team, and our buyers with a couple bottles of Graham Beck Brut – a fitting finish to yet another of those grand days at the office!

THE REBEL IS A KING : AT LAST

Rebel King
(Photo : Gold Circle)

South Africa is renowned for the quality of its sprinters. The names of SENTINEL, TROCADERO, ABBEY BOY, MAGIC MIRROR and SENOR SANTA among many others, resonate from the not so distant past, yet recent years have witnessed a plethora of outstanding performers in this department. GOLDEN LOOM, NATIONAL COLOUR, WAR ARTIST and the appropriately named JJ THE JET PLANE and MYTHICAL FLIGHT, illustrate the point as forcibly as any other generation might have done.

In most countries and in most eras, horses of the calibre of Summerhill-bred, REBEL KING, might’ve stood out among their contemporaries. There have been few horses less fortunate than this one, to have been born when he was. Generation after generation have thrown up one good horse after another, and just as he dispensed with MYTHICAL FLIGHT, along came WAR ARTIST and then JJ THE JET PLANE. On Saturday, REBEL KING finally earned his Grade One glory in the Cape Flying Championship, unfettered at last by the threat of these giants and unsullied by the complications of unsoundness which have blighted his C.V. thus far.

The net result? Markus Jooste and his partners have a deserved stallion prospect on their hands; Charles Laird increases his lead in the Trainers Championship to a R1million plus; and NATIONAL EMBLEM goes to the top of the Sires Log, alongside his erstwhile paddock mate at Summerhill, KAHAL.