REALISATION OF A DREAM

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AL MAKTOUM SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE
May 2010

We talked this week about the return of some of our men on international scholarships. Education and skills upliftment was one of the pillars on which Summerhill built its Breeders Championships, recognising that we couldn’t separate ourselves from the crowd unless we took control of the things we were able to manage. When these were beyond our reach, we embraced nature, knowing that she works in her own way, and that the best way to succeed was to partner her.

We’re soon to take the next step, by raising the educational bar even further. If you’ve been a follower of these columns during the past twelve months, you’ll know we’ve been earnestly pressing ahead with our School Of Management Excellence. The school represents a number of things. In the first instance, the idea was to honour the contribution of the late Sheikh Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, not only to Summerhill, but also to KwaZulu Natal and South Africa. Secondly, it would serve as a rallying point for all farms and lovers of racing, where our social consciences could meet on the one idea on which there could be no argument. The world needs education in horses, but no country in the world needs it more than South Africa. This is the noblest way we could spend our money, and we’re quickly getting there.

We also wanted to build an institution of which all its scholars, its donors and educators could be proud. Anyone looking upon this edifice now, will know we meant business. Watch this space.

NELSON MANDELA : TWO DECADES ON

Nelson Mandela
(Photo : Moreintelligentlife)

NELSON MANDELA

Yesterday marked the day on which the Nationalist government, which had held power in South Africa throughout the apartheid era commencing in 1948, announced the unbanning of the African National Congress and the release of Nelson Mandela. Nine days later, the secret which Finance Minister Barend Du Plessis had shared with several of South Africa’s senior business leaders at Summerhill several months before, became a reality.

History’s most famous prisoner walked free from Pollsmoor prison after 27 years of incarceration. The man who during his trail in the 1960’s had proclaimed that equality was a principle for which he had lived, and it was one for which he was prepared to die, went on to become democratic South Africa’s first elected president, and arguably the most famous man of all time. Certainly, he is the most exalted African ever, and this week marks the celebration of the most unusual life of our times.

It also marks the 20^th anniversary of the decision on the part of the Rulers of Dubai to send stallion prospects to Summerhill, commencing with, in the case of Sheikh Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud, the European Champion Stayer, Braashee, and in the case of Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell, the good miler, Rami. Both horses entered training later that year, and later served as the foundations of what has become one of racings best-told stories.

As part of our own celebration, we welcomed yesterday the man who was responsible for Sheikh Hamdan’s commitment to South Africa, Angus Gold, one of international racing’s most recognisable figures. The consummate professional, he’s built for Sheikh Hamdan a business of international renown at Summerhill, including the quality stallions, Muhtafal and Kahal.

DUBAI’S WOES: WHERE DO WE GO?

Meydan Racecourse in Dubai
(Photo : www.meydan.ae)

DUBAI’S ECONOMIC TURNDOWN

You can imagine that with Summerhill’s connection with the Ruling Family in Dubai going back twenty years this coming February, our phone lines have been burning with inquisitive pressmen wanting to know the state of the nation. While most of it has already been displayed in technicolor across the television screens of the world, we have a different perspective. Ours is to do with horses, and a recollection of a contribution from the late Sheikh Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud and the present Deputy Ruler, Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stud which, to the degree that they raised the bar in the quality of horses they were sending to South Africa, changed the face of breeding in this country irretrievably.

While it’s not the Arab way to speak out about these things, (which means there’ll be any amount of conjecture), our confident guess is that the UAE in general and Abu Dhabi in particular, will not let Dubai stand alone. That being the case, while it won’t quite be business as usual, we fully expect the Maktoum family’s influence over affairs in the Middle East especially, and across the world as well, to continue, albeit in a more subtle fashion for the time being.

Of course, the doomsayers will claim that Dubai’s dilemma will trigger a second wave of extreme recession, and given the austerity that will flow from the departure of expatriates from the Emirate and the envitable lay-offs that must follow, things will never be quite the same again. You’d be underestimating Sheikh Mohammed if you thought that, and we believe you’d be underestimating the resolve of the UAE as well, to stand together.

Nonetheless, from a horseman’s perspective, it’s the last thing you’d want, notwithstanding the envy their worldwide dominance attracts. We doubt that even their strongest competitors, Coolmore, would see it in anybody’s interests that the Maktoum equine empire should suffer, because that would have implications for the balance sheets of every single player in the game. The Maktoums have not only been central to the creation of records in thoroughbred value, in international auction markets and in the promotion of racing itself, they employ many thousands of horsemen and other personnel in their stud farms, their auction companies, their publishing businesses and their racing yards, across the length and breadth of the world. It would be catastrophic for the industry if this were to come to an end, or for that matter, suffer any measurable diminution.

The Maktoum family’s intervention in racing some thirty five years has altered the course of our sport unrecognisably, and we’re the better for it. We all need to be hoping that things will settle, as the financial press are beginning to suggest, and that the Dubai World Cup for record prize money next March, will take its place at the new Meydan facility as scheduled.

If events at the Tattersall’s Foal sale of the last week are anything to go by, John Ferguson, acting for Sheikh Mohammed, was the biggest buyer yet again in a surprisingly buoyant market, which suggests that at the very least, the Maktoum family’s personal finances appear to be in good order. That said, buyers in general at the sale were as intrepid as ever, best described by Sheikh Hamdan’s racing manager, Angus Gold, as “extraordinary trade in an extraordinary business”.

DESERT LINKS : The six flags are still flying...

Last month, Independent Newspapers columnist, David Thiselton, alluded to the Summerhill tradition of flying six flags outside the stallion barn following a Graded Stakes winner, and he enquired over the weekend after Desert Links’  spectacular victory in Africa’s greatest staying race, the Canon Gold Cup (Gr.1), whether the flags were doing their stuff.

The answer is a resounding “yes”, as the whole place celebrates a Gold Cup winner with the same enthusiasm that we celebrate heroes of the J&B Met, the Gomma Gomma and the Durban July. There are those who will argue that the Gold Cup is not in the same league, but it has a tradition and a social history at least as long and prestigious as any of those events, and those of us who revere its place in the racing calendar, look forward to our runners in this marathon event with the same spirit and respect as the best races in the land.

Our cause is a good one as we’ve made a point of trying to inculcate in our stock, a balance of stamina, which the thoroughbred as a breed not only deserves but absolutely needs in order to maintain its integrity.

Some years ago we set out in a deliberate attempt to breed a Gold Cup winner, following a boiling cup of tea on a sweltering verandah in the 45º heat only a corrugated verandah in the Karoo can induce. Never was it more truly said that “mad dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun” than here, as we languished over lunch in the vicinity of Oudtshoorn in the company of our great English mate, Alec Foster, a horse enthusiast if ever there was one, and a purist for the traditions associated with the thoroughbred. Our purpose was an assault on the few genuine Gold Cups left in the Durban Turf Club’s vaults, and we determined to send two mares to two horses of significant stamina in our attempt to achieve it. The granddam of Victory Moon, Wild Hyacinth was one of those selected for the purpose, and she was sent to Braashee, a two mile winner of the Yorkshire Cup in the UK. Another, a daughter of Northfields, was sent to the English  mile and a half record holder, Desert Team, with the same result in mind.

The following year we sent two Northern Guest sisters out of a stamina-laden daughter out of the great French Classic sire Luthier, to Jallad and Braashee, with the same strategic intent, and between the four of them these mares, produced a nine time winning miler (out of Wild Hyacinth,) a Gold Cup winner, Cereus, (from the Northfields mare), a Champion filly, Icy Air (out of the one Northern Guest mare) and Amphitheatre, who went down just a nose in the Gold Cup from the other Northern Guest mare. Which just goes to show, if you put your head down with a proper purpose in mind, these things are possible, even in a business as unpredictable as racehorse breeding. Unfortunately, for this story’s sake.

Saturday’s winner of the Gold Cup, Desert Links, was not bred with a Gold Cup in mind. He did however, represent a deviation from the norm in the breeding affairs of the late Sheikh Maktoum, insofar as his dam, Selborne Park, was sent to a “non-Gainsborough” stallion in Kahal, in the hope of breeding an animal of some size, as his dam, a Stakes winner in her own right had repeatedly produced small, light horses of limited ability.

On the credit side, Desert Links comes from a female line of considerable accomplishment in the hands of the best families in French breeding, including the Dupres, Marcel Boussac, the Aga Khan and latterly the Niarchoses. You could scarcely line up four more distinguished breeders in that country’s history and so this family, which includes the likes of the Champion Staying filly of her year in Europe, Dunette and her Gr.1 winning son of Sadler’s Wells, French Glory, was always likely to throw up a quality horse.

Following his impressive victory in the Cup Trial in June, Desert Links ran a “whopper” from the back of the field in the Vodacom Durban July a month ago, earning his position as joint favourite going into Saturday’s race. Though favourably drawn, he somehow managed to find himself three horses wide most of the way, as the field traversed the 3200m journey around Greyville racecourse’s spectacular circuit. It’s the only course in the world covering 3000m in extent, and it lies in the heart of the city (encircling the Royal Durban Golf Club) and despite running wide, Desert Links ran on manfully in the closing stages, exhibiting his class as he went away from one of the best line-ups in modern Gold Cup history.

Salutations to his breeders, Gainsbourgh Stud, his owners and old friends of the farm, Etienne Braun, Eban Bouwer, Paul Loomes and of course, Selwyn Marcus. And finally, and probably most of all, to his exceptional trainer, Basil Marcus, whose as old a friend of this farm as anyone. The horse was expertly handled for his preparations for this race by another stalwart supporter of the farm, Dennis Drier, who celebrated his second association with the Gold Cup winner, having produced Highland Night for Andre Macdonald to get up and beat our own Amphitheatre by a neck five seasons ago.

“Amazingly, this same Eban Bouwer used to put the ball under the bosses’ feet in the Western Province rugby scrum in the early 70’s, and while it might well have been the other way round, Mick has always contended that it was he that made Eban famous!”

(Photography courtesy of John Lewis)

HARTFORD HOUSE Suites - Alyssum Suite

A journey through the suites at Hartford House recently included among the Top Boutique hotels in South Africa.

This week’s choice of suite is the Alyssum Suite (Suite 9).

 

Originally known as the Garden suite, and with its neighbour, were the first attempt by our previously unskilled Zulus at building with bricks and mortar. A fine effort, we’re sure you’ll concede.

Now named Alyssum, for the flower of course, the name also remembers one of the greatest of all Hartford racehorses. Alyssum (the horse,) excelled against the best of his generation at distances ranging from five furlongs (the human equivalent of a 100 metres sprint at the Olympics) to ten furlongs (the equivalent of the mile to humans), which exemplified not only his versatility, but also his abiding class.

Alyssum was one of the mainstays of the famous Ellis’ string of the 1950’s, when the Hartford colours swept all before them on the racetracks of South Africa. Indeed, in owner-breeder terms, the Ellises have no parallels in South African racing history, and it was the great thoroughbred author, Sir Mordaunt Milner, who described their achievements in the same breath as those of Lord Derby, the Aga Khan and the Sheikhs Maktoum in the United Kingdom, the great European breeders, Boussac and Tesio, and the famous American stables of Phipps and the Hancocks.

There was a time when their supremacy was such that if there was a horse in the green and black silks on its way to the post, it was as good as money in the bank!

The furnishings in these suites are drawn from such diverse places as India and Morocco, while the teak flooring was part of the original dining room in the fabled Edward Hotel on Durban’s Golden Mile.

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