ONE HORSE : THAT'S ALL IT TAKES

Please click above for a little racing nostalgia from 1946.
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(Photos : Summerhill Stud Archive)

“One horse can change everything.”

Mick Goss
Summerhill Stud CEOSuccess on the turf often has unpretentious beginnings. That’s part of the daydream that still tempts young people to persist with the prickly beast with bad legs that cost him a few thousand Rands, and arrived with a patched-up headstall and a torn rug. They remember the folklore, and are comforted by it. We should not be sniffy about these fantasies: racing runs on them. One horse can change everything.

The late great Sydney Laird trained seven “July” winners, more than any other man in history, yet for him the one that changed everything, that set him up for life, was probably the weakest of them. Kerason last-gasped the July at 40 to 1 in the 1961 edition, and everyone knew then that Syd had learnt his lessons well. He came up under the watchful eye of his uncle, the immortal Syd Garrett, and the ink under Left Wing’s name in 1960 (Garrett’s last July winner) was scarcely dry, when his apprentice handed the master a lesson in the art in what was his first year as a professional. I once asked an aging Syd over breakfast, whether the rumours about his tossing it in, were true. “I’ve got a number of youngsters in the yard, and nobody ever jumped from the top floor while he still had an unraced juvenile in his care”. That was Syd. Herman Brown Snr remembers Gatecrasher, while David Payne will tell you, his “one horse” was undoubtedly In Full Flight. Just one horse.

“Dynasty” is a word reserved for famous successions, and in the world of racehorses, we have our share. Syd Laird’s son, Alec, was fired up by London News, his champion trainer cousin, Charles by Novenna, while Dennis Drier, another scion of this “manure-in-the-footsteps” family, says it was Sea Cottage. They all suffer from the disease for which there is no cure, and it’s all because of one horse.

Mike de Kock, who trained Horse Chestnut (the best horse since Sea Cottage,) and Igugu (the best since Horse Chestnut,) would surprise you that his jolt came not from those two, but from Evening Mist, who delivered up his first Group One, and gave notice to the world that here was a young man capable of filling the ample boots of his mentor, Ricky Howard-Ginsberg. De Kock has trained 87 Group One winners, and while he isn’t that sentimental about horses, you knew that Evening Mist was the one horse who’d wriggled her way into his heart. One horse.

For my own part, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the horse that got my juices going, had to be St Pauls, diminutive winner of the 1946 Durban July for my grandfather, Pat Goss. I wasn’t around then, but my forebears earned their place in history when this graduate of Pony & Galloway handicaps (reserved for horses under 15 hands) became the smallest winner in the annals of Africa’s greatest horse race, from draw 20. I remember making a collect call during my military training in 1969, when the operator, as he was wont to do, asked for my name. When I volunteered it, he enquired whether I was related to the “St Pauls” Gosses? The operator was one Nic Claasen, in his reincarnation one of those indestructible characters of the South African turf, a man inspired by the money he’d made on St Pauls to become a racehorse trainer. Later in life, when old Nic wanted to emphasize a point to a television presenter, he would grab his forearm and squeeze it in a gesture of sincerity. Nic was never short of hope, and “for as long as you’re hoping, you’ve got a chance”. Then he’d grab the forearm again, and become a little fatherly. “One horse”, he used to say, “that’s all it takes”.

But for me it wasn’t St Pauls. For me it was a horse called Dan, who cut his teeth on the humble circuits of Eastern Cape country racing. Dan grew up in the shadow of the First World War and the greatest Depression the world has known, and he used to walk from my grandfather’s base near Lusikiki to his next engagement. One of my most cherished memories growing up, was a photograph of the erstwhile mentor to Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo (yes, the man after whom Africa’s biggest international airport is now named), saddling my grandfather’s entry for the Bizana Cup, as a bare-footed twelve-year-old.

Dan was no ordinary horse, and there was no ordinary transport to take him to his next assignment. Not that it would’ve helped. Pat Goss rescued him as a two year old, when he was down to be shot on a neighbouring spread, if he would only stand still for long enough. A big, fractious lump of a bay with a hunter’s head, he was running wild on the stockman’s property, but he must’ve been handled at least once because he’d been gelded. No-one could catch him, and he was rumoured to be feral. The truth though, is he was a grandson of the 1911 July winner, Nobleman. An old strapper called Ndhlebende broke him in, and it was a riotous affair. For all that, his handler was a dyed-in-the-wool horseman; the horse became tractable, and with time, he actually took a liking to racing, as well as his groom.

He would set out fully a week before the next meeting on foot, his Dick King lookalike on top, and by the time he arrived, as one wag recently put it, he was “ready-to-run!” This was a foot soldier in the real sense of the word, reputed to have walked more than 1600 miles during his career to these bush meetings, where he was something of a legend, not only for the distances he covered, but for the silver he took home.

Dan’s reward for his all-conquering exploits on the country circuit, was a crack at the big time. In one of racing’s great fairytales, he wound up earning a cheque in the “big two”, the Cape Metropolitan and St Seriol’s 1945 Durban July. How’s that for killing the giants?

As for St Pauls, his size (or rather the lack of it) prompted the decision to start him out in a maiden at a village meet near Kokstad. His trainer was a 76 year old father of 13, and Duggie Talbot, as dapper as he might’ve been in the Durban parade ring, was the owner of a badly scuffed float, which had been sighted carting horses to race tracks from Matatiele to Mthathta. Here was a battler since his first race ride in 1918, when General Botha was still Prime Minister, and Pamphlet won the first of his two Durban Julys.

Talbot was a little man with twinkling blue eyes, rosy cheeks and the cocky air of a bantam rooster. He had a rolling gait and a falsetto voice which people liked to imitate, sometimes to his face, which never seemed to bother him. The voice was somehow right: part of him would always be a little boy, full of hope and derring-do. Another part of him was granite hard: he knew the world would stomp all over you, if you lay down or showed fear.

He was like a man before his tenth birthday; he’d grown up on the Western plains of the Karoo, red dust, clay pans that gave off a hard white light, hardly a tree. He lived in a slab hut with an earthen floor, and rooms divided off by chaff bags, sewn together with baling twine. Kerosene lamps provided little pools of light. Before Talbot was ten, he was working the scoop behind a team of draught horses, killing sheep for the butcher, breaking in horses and carting water. And here he was now, handling a live candidate for the Durban July.

A recent octogenarian visitor to Summerhill, Alistair Stubbs, reports that as a teenager, he was on hand at New Amalfi Station near the family farm, The Springs, when the owner was loading a rather non-descript little fellow onto a cattle truck, destined for Durban. “You’ve just seen the Durban July winner,” proclaimed the owner, a full four months before the race was due to get underway. Such was Pat Goss’ confidence that he booked out the Kew Hotel for the victory celebrations a few days later, and in one of those few stories in racing’s folklore that actually come true, he bolted home under Georgie Foster’s hands-and-heels urging in record time. The party, it is said, lasted two days, and within a few more, The Kew was a smouldering ruin. The little horse, who was named for the London cathedral that withstood the blitz of the Battle of Britain, had brought about, it seemed, the destruction of one of Durban’s most famous landmarks. But it wasn’t before every Durbanite who shared Pat Goss’ reverence for the Durban July, had joined the revelry at this queen of hotels.

THE VALUE OF RELATIONSHIPS

A little Goss Family history…
(Summerhill Stud Archives)

“BMT”

Mick Goss
Summerhill Stud CEOYou’ve heard this before, no doubt, but there was no inheritance involved in the development of Summerhill. The farm and its now-famous boutique hotel and restaurant, Hartford House, were built on the blood, sweat and sacrifices of a gifted team, as good as you’ll find anywhere in the world. What we did inherit though, was an appreciation of the value of relationships, the thread of which you’ll find running through the history of the Goss family, from the time of the original founder, Michael, who was part of a contingent of Irish settlers under Captain Butler in 1820. My grandfather, Pat, started a trading enterprise in Pondoland in 1916, and his bankers were Standard Bank. He was the first man in those parts to convert from an ox-drawn wagon to a truck with a combustion engine, and he filled it up at his own bowser with fuel supplied by the Atlantic Fuel & Firing Company (which exists today, after seven name changes, as Engen).

When he planted his maize and sorghum, he used the products made by what is modernly known as Kynoch, and his books were audited by a small firm in Port Shepstone, the closest place where such a service could be found. He bought his first tractor in Kokstad from the Chapman family of East Griqualand Tractors in the 1920s, and he founded his racehorse breeding enterprise at The Springs on the New Almalfi Flats in the shadow of the Great Depression. He was quite a boy, old Pat, and it wasn’t long before he had his July winner, the diminutive St Pauls, in 1946.

These commercial relationships survived and thrived in my father Bryan’s era, and we’re proud to tell you that today, our bankers remain Standard, we continue to buy our fuel from Engen and our tractors from the Chapmans, and some of the family work is still undertaken in Port Shepstone.

Following St Pauls’ “July”, the celebrations were held at the very smart Kew Hotel on Durban’s Berea, where the manager was a spritely young lady, June Maguire. Her daughter Robin and her husband Robert Muir have had horses at Summerhill since the early 80s, initially in partnership with another erstwhile veteran of the farm, Lou Bernstein (remember his July winner, Chimboraa in 1968)?. The very first racehorse they bred here was Hot Guard, Champion Two-Year-Old of South Africa; the Muirs must have thought this game was easy, and for them it probably has been, with the likes of Champions Cataloochee, Argonaut and Candidato Roy, and Summerhill resident sire and Derby hero, Ravishing.

Many things have been said and written about the Rupert family, and the one thing that is common to everyone who has ever had a word to say about them, is how much they value relationships. Johann and I played cricket together at university, though the family’s inspiration in the breeding business came through his wife Gaynor. Whilst today they own the spectacular Drakenstein Stud in Franschoek, they’ve been with us since the gates opened at Summerhill, and they’re still here. A veteran trio at Summerhill includes my brother Pat and his two fellow founders of what was originally Rand Consolidated Investments, G.T. Fererria and Laurie Dipenaar, part of the Summerhill show since the early 80s (the latter two later established with the Ruperts, the conglomerate now called First Rand, which gave birth to Rand Merchant Bank, First National Bank, Momentum Life and Discovery). The 80s also sparked Rodney Thorpe and Roger Zeeman, owners of the champions Imperial Despatch, Harry’s Charm and Amphitheatre, and one-time investors in Igugu and the highly talented Lady Broadhurst. They’ve had a “charmed” life.

In my days as a practising attorney, I was bowled over to find the advocate I’d briefed in a case involving a horse called Marathon Gold, was able to recite the horse’s pedigree inside-out as I entered his chambers (remember, this was long before Google and the internet). That man became a highly respected judge of the Supreme Court, Alan Magid. Together with another stalwart of the farm, former Jockey Club Chairman and Imbongi and Fisani’s owner, Ronnie Napier, they serve as governors of our School Of Management Excellence.

2012 marks our twenty-first year of involvement with the ruling family of Dubai, the Maktoums, owners of Kahal and Muhtafal. Their mark has been left on the Thoroughbred the world over, as the biggest owners and breeders of all time, while at the other end of the “royalty” spectrum, we have His Majesty, King Letsie III of Lesotho, not only an ardent racing fan, but a great friend of the farm.

One guy who’s come from nowhere as a former running mate in the lunchtimes at Greyville racecourse, to commanding a Summerhill menagerie, is former Racing Association chair, Bruce Gardner, co-breeder of multiple “champ” Nhlavini, as well as Classic heroine, Mystery Guest, and dual Merchants hero, Arabian Mist. His predecessor at the “RA”, Barry Walters, has just completed his third decade with us, and includes among his memories the Bloodline Million (Gr1) victor, Last Watch, one of our earliest Classic winners.

Sport is a great forger of relationships and among our pals from the playing fields while there was still wind in our lungs, were Barry Clements, Alan Sutherland (rugby) Peter Fenix, Anton and Mike Proctor (cricket), Seymour Harley, Rob Pickering and Mike Benson (polo). Some of these fellows have excelled as much in the breeding of spectacular racehorses as they did in their international and provincial sporting careers, driven no doubt, by the competitive instincts that made them famous in the first place.

If you follow racing in Dubai, Germany, France, the UK, the States, South America, South Africa and sometimes even in Scandinavia, you’ll have come across the name of one of the world’s silent (but most ardent) investors. Our good friend, Rupert Plersch, has known Group race success in almost all these places, and concentrates most of his “fire power” at Summerhill.

There are many more of course, some bigger, some smaller, some long-standing, some more recent, among them real characters and intrepid players. You have to be all these things to be in the game, and then you have to have the “BMT”, that thing that steers us through thick and thin, the good times and the tough.

There are little breeders, one or two mare types who’ve bred millionaires, like Emperor Napoleon and Bold Ellinore, Paris Perfect, and Hear The Drums, others bigger and illustrious who’ve been associated with Ebony Flyer, Ipi Tombi and their ilk. But their stories are not going to be swamped by the length of this article. The holidays are a good time to reveal them and their secrets to you, so that’s what we’ll do.

www.summerhill.co.za

THE WINTER SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE

Pat Goss with Cheryl and Mick Goss at the official inauguration of the
Bryan and Erica Goss Memorial Theatre and Hall of Fame
(Photo : Felicity Hayward)

BRYAN AND ERICA GOSS
MEMORIAL THEATRE AND HALL OF FAME

The opening day of our Winter School was big enough in itself, for its historic value. It was a sentimental moment for us, because it marked the official inauguration of the Bryan and Erica Goss Memorial Theatre and Hall of Fame, which Mick’s brother, Pat presided over. As both brothers said in their short addresses, the fruits of their parent’s labours could not have been better employed than by contributing towards this noble cause.

The inaugural lecture on Entrepreneurship and Family Business was delivered by Professor Justin Craig of Bond University in Australia. Not only is this a man who uniquely touches upon the things that affect most people’s business lives, but he is one of only a handful of authorities on the subject, and by the time his hour was up, we knew why. He’ll be back, and there is no-one outside of a multi-national who can afford to miss it.

Justin was followed by Mike de Kock and a panel headed by Dr. John McVeigh; Judge Alan Magid; past Jockey Club Chairman, Ronnie Napier and Jehan Malherbe. This was a rare opportunity to hear a rare man sharing his secrets, and the questions came thick and fast, overrunning his time by some measure. Mike shared with us all the things that’ve turned him into one of the most recognisable figures in international racing, as well as a comparison of his best horses, and what sparks their buying initiatives for their raids on the international circuits.He pointed to the differences between the styles of Ipi Tombe and his latest star, Igugu, whom he feels incidentally, he hasn’t yet quite got to the bottom of. The reason? He hasn’t had to, as she’s done it all herself, and he feels that she’ll not only make the normal weight-for-age improvement as she grows older, but there’s more where she comes from already.

Professor Brian Kantor was next up, and he demonstrated, as he has done so many times, why he became Professor Emeritus at Cape Town University’s Business School. A wonderfully vital personality with an infectious understanding of the markets, he took us through a range of topics from investments, the money markets, the world economy and what the likely scenarios were with the sovereign failures in Europe, and the local economy’s prospects for the year ahead. Those things can be a little mundane to the man in the street, but this Professor has mastered the art of entertainment, and he’ll be back to delight us again in the year ahead.

Jehan Malherbe pointed to the challenges which owners and breeders face in the present market, the latter in particular with the substantial sums they paid in service fees in the 2008 season, which has meant the sale of considerable numbers of horses this year at a loss on their production costs.  He did mention though, that this was a time of opportunity, as service fees had rationalised themselves substantially. The debate then centred on the fact that the UK and Ireland, Europe and America, had cut their foal crops by something approaching 33%, and that being the case, those with the foresight to cover their mares, would have the stock to replenish the world’s thoroughbred reserves in 2014.

Altus Joubert Senior Counsel is an incomparable speaker on a number of topics, but the one that animates him is the thoroughbred, and his story on the history of the South African racehorse before the Second World War, was quite riveting. We’d had a bit of a conscience, asking a man who makes his living from the time he spends with clients in his chambers, to prepare for a school of this sort, but all signs of conscience dissipated when we saw the pleasure he had in delivering this story. Like those that went before him, he promised to provide us with the rest of the story next time around, which would take us from those days to this. Let’s not forget though, that our forebears like Sir Abe Bailey (whose daughter married Winston Churchill’s son), tampered at one time with Candlemas, whose influence on the breed extends to the likes of Mr Prospector and Seattle Slew; that old man Henry Nourse ran the biggest stud in the world in the early 1900’s, and that the Birch Bros., the most successful of all South African Breeders, were born in this era as well.

We’ll give you the comments of our attendees tomorrow - you’ll know then, what you missed.

SOUTH AFRICA'S RACING GRAND SLAM

Please click above to watch a little Durban July history.
The presentation can be paused at any point using the navigation controls, bottom left.
It can be viewed full-screen by clicking the view button, bottom right.

(Photos : Summerhill Stud Archive)

A NEW THOROUGHBRED BREEDERS ASSOCIATION INITIATIVE

The term “Grand Slam” evokes all sorts of emotions, particularly when it’s applied to golf, tennis and northern hemisphere international rugby tours. There is another context though, in which South African racing sees it, and a new initiative by the Thoroughbred Breeders Association of South Africa, intends to bring racing’s Grand Slam back to life.

What is meant by racing’s grand slam? Well firstly, there’s never been an official identification of the events, but under the direction of its chairman, Altus Joubert and through the enterprise of Alan Roux, they’ve identified the three big “majors”, the Vodacom Durban July, the J&B Met and the Sansui Summer Cup as the jewels in the crown. How many people; owners, trainers or jockeys, how many horses and stallions have ever achieved victory in all three. For starters, no one horse has ever done so, which is almost understandable when you recall the fact that they’re up to 1000 miles apart, in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, two of them are run at sea level and one at almost 6000 ft.

Only four trainers have ever been there, Syd Garrett, Terrance Millard, Syd Laird and Mike de Kock. The mere mention of their names helps to understand why. In the post-war era, the progeny of only two stallions, both of them champions, Royal Prerogative and Foveros, have achieved the grand slam, though obviously through different horses. Just one other pre World War II stallion, the French-bred Cape Metropolitan winner, Asbestos II, did it through his sons Feltos (Met & Summer Cup) and Pat Goss’ diminutive St Pauls (the Durban July). In the modern era, all of Silvano, Fort Wood and Jet Master have two legs under their belts, and it’s a fair bet one or more of them will achieve the grand slam in the not too distant future.

The breeders are another story. Thirty four grand slam victories for the Birch Brothers is an astounding achievement, even considering there were three different farms between them, with an awful lot of mares. No wonder they dominated the Breeders Championship for so many decades. Old man Nourse, who won his first July in the early 1900’s with Nobleman, bred nine grand slam winners, while the Koster Brothers between them have seven. You might well ask how we’ve done. The old Hartford produced three Summer Handicap winners (read Summer Cup), a July winner in Mowgli, the only race of any importance on the calendar to elude them, being the Metropolitan. We put that right when we came here, with two horses off Summerhill; La Fabulous and Angus taking the J&B Met, Luke Bales’ Dancing Duel was a July winner born on the farm, and Pick Six and Emperor Napoleon “exacta-ed” the Summer Cup.

The history books tell us this is as tough as grand slams get, and it’s worth working for. Salutations to Alan Roux, Altus Joubert, Robin Bruss and everyone else behind the project.

MICK GOSS - A SOUTH AFRICAN HORSE RACING TREASURE

 

Mick Goss
(Photo : Gareth Du Plessis)

“Extract from The Citizen by Mike Moon”

SUMMERHILL STUD
MOOI RIVER, SOUTH AFRICA

Mike Moon
The CitizenSummerhill Stud in Mooi River has won six consecutive South African champion breeders’ titles - but this remarkable achievement hasn’t made the Summerhill enterprise at all complacent.

That much is made quite clear by farm boss Mick Goss.

Mick and his team built Summerhill up from small beginnings with limited resources. So he knows the importance of ongoing hard work and innovation in maintaining vitality and viability in a business.

He also knows the importance of humility. This might come as a surprise to those who know of Mick Goss’s notable “gift of the gab” and marketing spiel, but anyone who hears him reflect on his success will know he’s rooted in reality and has a keen sense of the value of things he deals in - namely horses, people and money.

Mick and Summerhill take centre stage on Sunday as leading vendors on the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale at Gosforth Park. Mick grew up in Lusikisiki in Pondoland, the son of a farmer and trading station proprietor and the sixth generation of his family in South Africa. A forebear, also Michael Goss, came to these shores as part of an 1820 Settler Irish contingent.

As farmers, the Gosses have always lived with horses. Great-grandfather Edward was a noted horseman. Grandfather Pat bred thoroughbreds near Cedarville to feed his love of racing, and owned 1946 Durban July winner St Pauls.

Mick’s father Bryan took the reins of family farm and trading businesses, but a cardiac condition forced him to choose between farming and shop-keeping. He opted to sell the farm and move the family to a trading station at Lusikisiki.

This didn’t extinguish son Mick’s love of horses and racing.

“I knew all the racehorses in the country and their pedigrees. I knew the names of all July winners from the ’40s onwards. I was addicted to Duff’s Turf Guide,” recalls Mick. “It was my obsession.”

Mick went to Durban High School, where he excelled academically and at sport. He captained Natal Schools at rugby and won a rugby scholarship to Stellenbosch. While at varsity he represented Western Province under-20s and under-25s.

Graduating in law, he completed articles in Maritzburg, worked as an attorney and an advocate in Durban and established his own practice.

Then, after 17 years, he gave up law for racing and breeding.

His explanation for this decision? “Those of us in this game have a disease, that’s all there is to it. There were many times in the next 12 years when I wondered what I’d got myself into.”

The involvement started small. Mick and brother Pat decided to breed horses part-time. Their first mare purchase was Cosy Rosy in 1977.

Mick and Pat’s father had bequeathed them an unraced horse called Heliotriope, who won his second start in 1978.

“At that time I’d just won a scholarship to the USA. At the interview confirming this, I was asked, ‘Is this the best day of your life’. I had to answer, ‘No, that was yesterday when I had my first winner on the racecourse’.”

His next purchase was the filly Pagoda, who became a seven-time winner. “If I wasn’t hooked on racing by then, that was tickets and tax,” he chuckles.

Each year in the early 1980s, Mick and Pat bought two fillies to race, then breed. Of their first eight, five produced stakes winners.

Among these foundation mares were Coconut Ice, who got the useful Bianconi; and Final Wonder, who got Bloodline Million winner Last Watch.

The early horses still have family at Summerhill to this day.

“This history tells you that this game isn’t Russian Roulette,” says Mick. “If you work hard at selecting well and have an end game in mind, you can achieve it.” A guiding principle of Summerhill has been the building of family bloodlines. “I hear plaintive cries from my managers to get rid of certain mares. I reply that we are family-building. One year I was advised to sell two mares. I refused and they went on to give us Icy Air and Amphitheatre - both national champions.”

This is not to say Summerhill doesn’t closely monitor what mares throw and prunes poor genes where necessary.

The Goss name was first tied to that of Summerhill when the brothers sent broodmares to board at the then small Midlands stud farm. It was adjacent to Hartford, the Ellis family’s illustrious stud from whence had emerged the great Mowgli, Cape Heath and Magic Mirror.

Mick and his wife Cheryl first moved on to Summerhill in 1979. A syndicate was formed to buy the property and Mick got a 6.25% share in lieu of his transfer legal work.

Thereafter, he and Pat gradually bought out the partners. In 1987 Mick bought out Pat, who was launching a store chain.

Next-door Hartford was acquired in a swap - Mick’s old Hillcrest home for the legendary estate - after latter Ellis generations decided farming wasn’t for them.

In 1983 Summerhill received its greatest blessing in the form of stallion Northern Guest.

Mick and Pat had gone to England to buy a mare from Queen Elizabeth. “We didn’t bugger around” - and tagged on a trip to Ireland, land of their ancestors, to find a service for the acquisition. Mick spotted “the most charismatic animal I’d set eyes on”.

The brothers bought Northern Guest for a whopping R400,000, way beyond their means, persuading themselves they would syndicate the animal back home.

No such luck. Fellow breeders snubbed them, maybe in an attempt at competitive sabotage. Eventually they sold shares to invited rich individuals, but bought back whenever they could afford it.

Northern Guest became champion sire of South Africa in 1985 and again the following year - groundbreaking for a Natal-based stallion at the time. He was twice champion juvenile sire and champion broodmare sire nine times.

“There is not a pebble in the road at Summerhill, that Northern Guest didn’t contribute to,” says Mick. “When he’d walk past the office on his way to his paddock, the management team would stand on the verandah and pay respect to him.”

When the Gosses arrived on Summerhill there were six staff members, with no skills. Unemployment in the district was 80%.

Thirty years later, 370 people work there. Plus there is the up-market Hartford House hotel and award-winning restaurant, a horse-feed factory, a new school of equine management and a “deep social responsibility commitment”.

The Summerhill website is the most visited in the thoroughbred breeding world, with three times more visitors than other offerings in the industry worldwide.

While clearly proud of all this, Mick is also modest.

“It came from sheer desperation,” he explains.

Unlike most studs, Summerhill isn’t owned by a rich patron, so cash flow worries were constant in the formative years. This was starkly apparent in 1989, when Nationalist finance minister Barend du Plessis got Mick to assemble influential figures in racing, then proceeded to ask them to help bail out an economy about to go into tailspin due to sovereign debt default.

Alarmed at the implications for racing, Mick and the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association launched a bid to attract foreigners to come and race in South Africa - to keep cash flowing and perhaps save the game from extinction.

In a speech to racing folk in Newmarket in the UK, Mick reminded Brits that more than 2 million South African lives had been lost in Britain’s Empire wars, and half a million horses had left the country in the same cause, never to return. It was now time to return the favour.

He also pointed out what a good deal horse owners got in South Africa - racing at a 10th of the cost for stakes five-times more rewarding than in the UK.

They came in numbers - and still do. About 25% by value of racehorses in Cape Town belong to Brits today. More than 40% of the horses at Summerhill are foreign-owned.

That Newmarket meeting also brought Mick into contact with the Maktoum family, rulers of Dubai and racing aficionados. Their help for South African racing came via stallions standing at Summerhill. The first was Braashee, and Kahal and Muhtafal subsequently became standard bearers.

To remedy perceived stallion equity weakness, Summerhill now buys more of its own sires, like new arrivals Admire Main and Brave Tin Soldier.

Apart from “sheer desperation”, to what does Mick ascribe championship success?

Top of his list he puts his management team. He explains how a flattened management structure placed experts in their field at the head of divisions like farming, administration and estate maintenance, rather than pure horsemen trying to cope with the demands of these areas.

Another key factor was improved nutrition for the horses.

“We made a real breakthrough when we realised we had to improve husbandry methods, and this included the feed.”

Twenty years ago, Mick linked up with Australian animal feed experts and reckons nutrition technology introduced then was decades in advance of conventional wisdom.

A third factor was staff education. Nearly 40 staffers have travelled overseas on learnerships at great stud farms. “These guys bring a world-view of what it takes to be good.”

Next year, the Al Maktoum School of Management Excellence opens at Summerhill. “We want to make it a centre of equine excellence equivalent to anything in the world.”

A fourth factor: tie-ups with international partners, “which gave us the ability to spread risk and allow us to compete”.

Fifth factor: a radical change in farming methods. “We started to use bio-farming and organic techniques 15 years ago and it made a huge difference to immune systems, strength and birth weights.”

In conclusion, Mick mentions the Ready To Run Sale. He instigated the sale 24 years ago and nurtured it to its current status as a highlight on the racing calendar. He did this simply to sell horses, after battling on other sales in competition with leading stud farms of the time. 

“This game is all about perceptions. This sale has taught us more about our stock and stallions than we would otherwise ever have known. We learnt about temperament, how quickly horses learn and how much work they can take - and got insight into how to improve these things in mating. It’s an advantage few farms have.”

What of the future?

“The one inevitability about winning a championship is that you are going to lose it. We must prepare for life after the dream. One thing we do is identify areas in which we can continue to excel.”

With Mick Goss at the helm, Summerhill will remain a beacon of industry and excellence. He’s a man of great charm and persuasive talents. “But we must keep reminding ourselves about humility, the greatest human attribute,” he declares. “We promote ourselves hard, but veldskoens and khaki are alive and well in Mooi River. We live modestly and are not carried away with what’s been achieved. The moment you become arrogant you prepare yourself for a cropper.”

Extract from The Citizen

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