KENTUCKY DERBY 2012 IMPRESSIONS

Creative Cause
(Image : M.Compton - Footage : TVG)

KENTUCKY DERBY (G1)
Churchill Downs, Dirt, 2000m
5 May 2012

Lucas Marquardt - Who knows what was sacrificed to the gods to secure this week’s weather in Louisville, but who cares? Totally worth it. Once again, racetrackers got an ideal morning at Churchill yesterday, with pleasant temperatures and a mild breeze. As of 6pm Thursday, weather.com was calling for scattered thunderstorms both today and tomorrow and a 50% chance of rain. Fingers crossed. After two days of walking the shedrow at Churchill, which generated a couple of rumours that trainer Mike Harrington quickly squashed, Creative Cause returned to the track for the first time since his :47 4/5 work at Churchill Monday. He’s another horse I got a chance to see up close as a juvenile-at Becky Thomas’s Sequel operation in Florida, (where all our Summerhill Ready To Run scholarship recipients go) and as opposed to El Padrino, Creative Cause was much more of a finished product at two. That’s born out by his race record: he broke his maiden in mid-July of 2011 and won the GII Best Pal Stakes three weeks later. It’s impressive that he’s trained on the way he has.

There aren’t too many horses that can win on debut going five furlongs in :56 4/5 and be in the Derby mix months later. Looks wise, if you’ve liked him all spring, there’s no reason to jump off now. Harrington yesterday called all the talk about the shoe Creative Cause tossed earlier in the week much ado about nothing. “People asked why the horse didn’t go out at 8:30 a.m. (Sunday morning) and I told them we had to put a shoe on him, and people have been asking about it since,” he said. “I wish I’d just told them the exercise boy got drunk and didn’t show up on time.” The horse himself is as solid as his race record. He might not have the ‘wow’ factor of a Union Rags, but he looks strong and alert. The odd-couple pairing of the soft-spoken trainer Mike Maker and his impulsive owner Kendall Hansen has made for interesting watching on the Derby trail this year. Maker might not be a quote machine, but he can be a pretty funny guy. Yesterday, a reporter asked him what was going through his mind at the draw, when, with just two pills remaining and post one looming a serious threat for Hansen, the horse was assigned a much better spot in the 14 hole. “I thought, man, I might have to give these doctors to my left mouth-to-mouth, and I’m not going to do it,” Maker said. “I’m not qualified.”

From a betting perspective, I’m not in love with Hansen. I think he’s got a lot of talent and of course would be no surprise, but he was relatively fiery on the track yesterday morning and, given his disposition before the Blue Grass Stakes, could really be wound up by post time. Couple that with the fact that he figures to be close to what could be a hot pace, and the mile and a quarter becomes a serious question. Still, he looks good and I wouldn’t blame anyone who is looking for a repeat of his GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile score. I spent a bit of my morning collecting quotes for the Derby experiences story that ran in our special Kentucky Derby section today. Not all the quotes/stories made it in there, and there were a few good ones. I asked Hidden Brook’s Jack Brothers about his biggest Derby score. It came, not surprisingly, on the horse Brothers himself signed for at auction, Big Brown. (Hidden Brook bought the horse at KEEAPR for client Paul Pompa, Jr.) “I put down a sizeable win bet, the biggest I’d ever made before,” he said, later revealing that he collected $6,000 on the bet in the 2008 Derby. Two weeks after that, he nailed the David Donk-trained Pays To Dream at 19-1 in the GII Dixie Stakes on the Pimlico, and wheeled the winnings back on Big Brown in the Preakness. Nice two weeks. Here’s an interesting note: Brothers (acting on behalf of Hidden Brook) signed for Big Brown at auction, while his son, bloodstock agent Chris Brothers, signed for Union Rags as a yearling. If Union Rags is able to win tomorrow, it could represent, I guess, the first time a father and son have personally signed for Derby winners.

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

BY JINGO, THESE ARE PROPER JOCKEYS

Kip Elser presents John Motaung with the award for Rider of the Day
(Image : Leigh Willson / Michael Nefdt)

EMPERORS PALACE READY TO RUN GALLOPS
“Rider Of The Day”

JOHN MOTAUNG

If it’s nothing else, the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale stands out for its innovations. The concept of selling a ready-made racehorse was unique enough, but in its relatively short history, the Summerhill team have introduced any number of “world firsts” into the recipe. Locating the gallops on a farm (as opposed to a racecourse), has never been done before; televising the performances was a first-time innovation; filming and converting them onto a website and onto a DVD, was a pioneering invention; connecting the sale to a dedicated race was a first-off; and then making it the richest race of its kind in the world, was another “topper”.

Summerhill assembled a panel of judges to select the horses for the first time at any sale of any kind, anywhere in the world. Our six-instalment payment scheme goes back some thirteen years now (in one form or another), and it remains the only concept of its kind in the world. Besides a R2million race for graduates of the sale, we gave the event the best trophies in racing, and introduced five dedicated trials country-wide, so that race aspirants could be qualified without facing the danger of elimination. That doesn’t happen anywhere else, either.

This year, we introduced an award for the Rider of the Day, the jockey who displayed the greatest skills at the gallops. Kip Elser, our international guest this year, (he’s consigned horses to breeze-up sales on both sides of the Atlantic), was asked to adjudicate. His brief was simple, to select the rider that most impressed him from every aspect, given that they were aboard unraced two-year-olds galloping down the track for only the second or third time in their lives. This takes some skill, and a bit more. Professional jockeys aboard juveniles in races proper, will tell you how unpredictable they can be, even after a number of preparatory workouts, and you begin to know how skilful our boys have to be.

Kip’s man was John Motaung, who in his more than ten years at Summerhill has been the beneficiary of two international scholarships, one to Gainsborough Farm in Kentucky, the other as an intern at Becky Thomas’ renowned Sequel Bloodstock programme in Florida. This lady, Becky, is something of a saint. She’s taken our young men in, year after year, and treated them as her own. She’s not a native of South Africa, but she has an intuition of what’s needed in this country, particularly in the upliftment of our previously disadvantaged community. Like so many other young Summerhill “jocks”, she treated John as a son, she honed his personal and professional skills and sent him back a better man and a damned good rider. It says something for Becky Thomas that four of the top five riders on Friday, were graduates of Sequel.

Kip’s selection of John as the day’s best rider, is a tribute to you, Becky and it’s the unanimous view, one day we will have you here to do Kip’s job.

The Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale
Sunday 6th November

*Six cheque payment scheme for qualifying buyers.

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

BECKY THOMAS : MAKING A DIFFERENCE

“Click above to view a few photos of our trip…”

SUMMERHILL
INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME

Ricardo Christian
Assistant Pre-training Manager
Summerhill StudThabiso Mgoza and I had the privilege to spend the last 6 months in ‘racing paradise’. If you have had the privilege to experience the ‘sport of kings’ in the United states then you have an idea of what this journey has been like for us.

Our mentor Becky Thomas, pin-hooker; breeder; trainer and owner of Sequel Bloodstock, generously took on another two Summerhill recruits last year and I am lucky enough to tell the story this time. We left our green pastures in Mooi River, late November and found ourselves surrounded by what Floridians proudly boast to be the ‘training capital of the world’ - and it truly surpasses that. Ocala (Marion County) hosts over 1,200 thoroughbred training centres. Furthermore, the county ranked third nationally a couple of years back (behind two counties in Kentucky) in total value of horses sold.  Horses are big business in Marion County and Sequel Bloodstock is a prime example. Overwhelming, would be too subtle of a word for our first impression.

Upon arrival, we wasted no time and joined the Sequel team in the barns before our first sunrise starting at 5h30am. Becky and her team involved us in all aspects of the farm to get the whole ‘savoir faire’ down to every detail. It was not just eyes and ears; we were hands on from day 1. We walked away with a wealth of knowledge on keeping of barns, maintaining the horses nutritional needs, the racehorse soundness, 2 year old sales, pedigree analysis, training techniques and all the ins and outs of the ‘pin-hooking’ business. Riding her 2 year olds was our most vital part of this training programme and certainly what we valued most out of it. We were lucky enough to have ridden and worked with the progeny of the world’s leading Sires, such as, Bernadini, Distorted Humor, Freud, Elusive Quality, Read The Footnotes, Rock Hard Ten - amongst many. With the help of Becky, our riding has gone from strength to strength. As South African pre-training riders, the US training techniques and riding styles differ so much from our ways back home and in the beginning we really battled with the big 2 year old bruts.

The actual sales in the states was an amazing experience on its own; showing horses to some of the world’s leading trainers, such as Bob Baffert who came to view Sequel’s horses at the Barrets Sales in California.

Our six months in America exceeded our expectations, everything from training on the farm to working at the sales. Becky Thomas gave us an unbelievable opportunity and also taught us not just about horses but about the American lifestyle and the different traditions and cultures.

Becky’s motto was ‘make a difference’ and if Becky only knew what a difference her team and herself have made on our lives and the people we share it with back here in South Africa, then I know this scholarship programme (40 graduates later) is only a start of many successful things to come.

Ricardo Christian

THIS IS CNN : TIDINGS FROM AMERICA

Becky Thomas with Thabiso Mgoza and Ricardo Christian in Ocala, Florida, USA
(Photo : Sequel Bloodstock)

“Breeze Up Sales
are frighteningly competitive affairs…”

On a weekend when one of America’s most successful racehorse investors was with us, we have news from our own young men in that part of the world. Ebony Flyer is the three year old on everybody’s lips right now, and Team Valor’s Barry Irwin and his wife Kathleen breezed this way for the weekend. One lunchtime with Mr Irwin is like a semester at Harvard when it comes to the racing business, so needless to say, we had an intriguing couple of days. The news on Ebony Flyer, incidentally, is that she’s no longer travelling : she’s staying to contest next year’s international version of the Queen’s Plate, given the ambitions L’Ormarins and their fellow stakeholders have for the prize money next year.

Closer to home, most readers are familiar with our international scholarship programme, and the fact that we have our 39^th and 40^th recipients in the form of Ricardo Christian and Thabiso Mgoza on tour as we write. More specifically, they are based at Becky Thomas’ Sequel Bloodstock farm in Ocala, Florida, dubbed by Floridians as the “horse training capital of the world”. We’ve been lucky in our association with Becky, as she knows and understands what these programmes mean to our young people, and especially to a man like Thabiso, the extent of whose travel experience was confined pretty much to Mooi River and the Durban precincts till now.

Because we’ve been associated with Ready To Run sales for more than two decades, there’s a perception that everything connected with this form of marketing of racehorses, starts and ends at Summerhill. While that may bear some truth in terms of the evolution of the concept of Ready To Runs and the technical advancement of sales of this sort, the reality is that it has its roots right there in Ocala, where the O’Farrell family initiated the idea as long ago as 1957, out of a frustration with the fact that they were unable to compete at the major sales in Kentucky against the established farms there. It was at a dinner with the present generation of O’Farrells in 1987 that Mick Goss and the late Chris Smith stumbled on the idea as a solution to a similar difficulty in this country. Wrapping our product up as a running horse (as opposed to the “walking” parade at conventional sales) founded the fastest growing and most popular sale in South Africa, one which has already witnessed six more Graded Stakes winners this season alone, Igugu, Hollywoodboulevard, Blue Voyager, Mannequin, Pierre Jourdan and Arabian Mist.

In the States, the “Breeze Up” sales, as they’re known in that part of the world, are frighteningly competitive affairs, and only supreme horsemen and women survive, and thrive, in such an environment. You see, in the United States, the breezes are timed, and, in order to realize their value, horses are expected to gallop at a spectacular clip. In Ricardo’s words, as a rider of these horses, you’d better know your stuff, right down to the seamless changing of legs, maintaining your horse’s balance, and always remembering that this is a raw, relatively uneducated talent, imbued with the exuberance of youth, as well as an often explosive capacity for self-destruction.

Our “boys” are keenly aware of their responsibilities to Sequel and they know that in a world which doesn’t always appreciate these things, having a mentor who genuinely cares, is a world away from the “take-it-or-leave-it” approach many work experiences entail. These are gifted young people, born to ride horses but limited in their exposure to “life”, as most of us know it. There is no measure by which we can judge the value of these scholarships, nor the impact it has on the aspirations of those who’ve never been before.

For more information please visit :
www.summerhill.co.za