ONE FOR THE ROAD

Click above to remember Pat Goss Snr’s victory in the 1946 Durban July with St Pauls
(Images : Summerhill Stud Archives)

“One horse he’d say, that’s all it takes.”

Mick Goss
Summerhill CEOPat Goss Snr was an unusual man. Firstly, in a family in which there was an anticipation you’d either be a devout Catholic or a confirmed alcoholic, he was neither. In fact, he was a tee-totaller, an enterprising man, a consummate stockman and a devotee, if ever there was one, of the affairs of the turf.

Secondly, he was the first, and as it turns out, the only, Pondo trader ever to own a Durban July winner. His love of the game was rewarded in 1946 when St Pauls led home a procession in record time from the outside draw. I wasn’t around then, but my forebears earned their place in history when this graduate of Pony and Galloway handicaps became the smallest winner in the annals of the continent’s greatest horse race. When Pat Goss wanted to emphasise a point to a press man or a racing man, he would squeeze his forearm in a gesture of sincerity. Pat was never short of hope and “as long as you are hoping, you’ve got a chance”. Then he’d grab the forearm again, and become a little fatherly. One horse he’d say, that’s all it takes.

His addiction to the ponies was not surprising. The Gosses have had an affinity for them dating back to the Battle of the Boyne when they fought alongside the Maguires, the former kings of Ireland. At the same battle, one of the founders of the thoroughbred breed as we know it, the Byerley Turk, took the field as Captain Robert Byerley’s charge, having been captured in the East at the battle of Buda in 1689. Just last week, we were reminded of this history by one of our Irish relatives, Andy Goss, who sent pictures of the home from whence the original settler, Michael Goss went forth on his way to South Africa in 1820. I’m lucky to have this intrepid man’s name.

In an episode which exemplified for me as I grew up, that Pat Goss was a man with a love for the game, it was the story about Giant, who cut his teeth on the humble circuits of Eastern Cape country racing. Giant 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 in Lusikisiki to his next engagement. One of my most cherished memories growing up, was a photograph of Nelson Mandela’s mentor, Oliver Tambo (for whom Africa’s biggest international airport is named today) saddling my grandfather’s entry for the Bizana Cup, as a barefooted teenager.

Giant was no ordinary horse, but as a youngster he was certainly what the Aussies would describe as an “ornery” fellow. My grandfather rescued him as a two-year-old, when he was down to be shot on a neighbouring spread, if he’d 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, was that he was a grandson of the 1911 Durban July winner, Nobleman. An old strapper called Ndhlebende broke him in, and it was a riotous affair. His handler was a dyed-in-the-wool horseman though, and the horse soon settled. With time, he took a liking to racing, and it’s said he liked his groom, too.

Giant would set out fully a week before the next big meeting on foot, Ndhlebende on board, and by the time he arrived, he was “ready-to-run”. This was a foot soldier in the real sense, 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. Pat Goss rewarded him for his exploits with a crack at the big time. It’s something of a fairy-tale that he wound up earning a cheque in Extinguisher’s 1938 Durban July. This man stood on the shoulders of giants.

Size never deterred Pat Goss, though it might have affected his judgment. St Pauls’ size (or rather the lack of it) prompted Pat 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 Turf Club 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. 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 oxen, killing sheep for the butcher, breaking in horses and carting water. And here he was now, handling a live candidate for the Durban July. One horse, that’s all it took.

I was prompted to recall these stories about my grandfather by a letter received from a Hartford House visitor last week. Norman Herring is an old mate and a mine of information about the old days in East Griqualand, where my grandfather had his farm. Pat’s “home” racecourses, besides those in Pondoland, were Matatiele, Cedarville and Kokstad. Getting to any of these places from the farm was a mission, as he used to go by horse and buggy, like most of his neighbours. Coming home in the twilight one day with some forty miles to travel, he found himself alongside Alex Macdonald (father of the famous Springbok polo player, Doug Macdonald). I told you at the beginning that Pat Goss was a teetotaller, but that wasn’t the case with old man Macdonald. When they reached Alex’s farm, The Meads, Pat found his travelling companion fast asleep on his buggy, and if the truth be told, his faithful horse had probably brought his comatose corpse most of the way, without him even knowing it.

So as to ensure that the buggy did not stray too far with its precious cargo, Pat only outspanned the horse, walked him through the farm gate, passed the buggy’s disselboom through the fence, and inspanned the horse on the other side. And then went on his way.

Moral of the story. Don’t drink and drive.

A FEW DURBAN JULY STATS...

VODACOM DURBAN JULY (Grade 1)
Greyville, Turf, 2200m
7 July 2012

The Vodacom Durban July is a handicap but Jackson has a 2kg advantage over his rivals because of a condition that states that a three-year-old cannot carry more than 57kg. That makes him hard to beat and many experts will not hear of him getting beaten! For those not amongst them, here are some statistics that might help…

THE BEST DRAW

Barrier draws (a horse’s stall in the starting gate) do play a role in determining the result of the Durban July, but the good news for the many people backing Jackson in this year’s race is that wide draws are not insurmountable.

Six runners drawn on the extreme outside of the field have won since 1917.

The first three were Kipling in 1940 (drawn 22), St Pauls in 1946 (drawn 20) and Beau Art, a big chestnut with four white socks, who overcame draw No 17 in 1980.

In 1991 import Flaming Rock started from No 20 stall and unwound a devastating finish to win by a long head.

Then in 1998 Classic Flag also overcame the outside starting stall and jumped from No 18 draw before going on to score in race and course-record time.

In 2003 favourite Dynasty (Jackson’s sire) broke from No 20 draw and was forced to race wide in the early stages. But he produced a sustained finishing burst to beat Yard-Arm.

No 10 draw has been lucky in recent years with two of the last three winners, ill-fated Big City Life in 2009 and Igugu in 2011 winning from that berth.

THE BEST JOCKEYS

Jockeys Anthony Delpech and Anton Marcus share top honours in the Durban July in recent years, having ridden four winners each.

Delpech, who will partner second favourite Ilha Bela in Saturday’s big race, has previously worn the winner’s sash aboard Classic Flag (1998), Greys Inn (2004), Bold Silvano (2010) and Igugu (2011). Marcus, who will ride Vettel, first won the race on Dancing Duel (1993) and subsequently celebrated with the connections of El Pica (2000, winning the race for the second time running), Dunford, who sprung a surprise in the race in 2005 and Hunting Tower (2007).

THE BEST TRAINERS

Trainer Terrance Millard won the race seven times from 1983 to 1993. In more recent times, Mike de Kock has won the Durban July four times and Mike Bass three times. De Kock has four runners this year, Solo Traveller, Vettel, Gorongosa and Ilha Bela. Bass is three-handed with Castlethorpe, Chesalon and English Garden.

THE BEST AGE

Four-year-olds have an outstanding record in the Vodacom Durban July with horses from that age group having captured the event 42 times.

Three-year-olds have won 32 times, while five-year-olds have 25 victories to their credit.

Three-year-olds have been the most successful age group in more recent years with nearly 60% of their 30 wins having come in the last 20 years. By comparison only 25% of the victories by four-year-olds have been achieved in the last 20 years.

There are seven three-year-olds in this year’s race and nine four-year-olds.

THE BEST WEIGHT

The lightest weight of 38,5kg was carried to victory by Nymagee in 1904 and Margin in 1916. The heaviest weight, 66kg, was carried to victory by Campanajo in 1898.

Since the distance of the race changed to 2200m in 1970 few horses carrying 55kg or more have won, but it must be noted that the bottom weight for handicaps was raised 2kg in 2010, bringing the bottom weight in handicaps up from 50kg to 52kg.

Horses who won carrying 55kg or more since 1970:

• 1978 Politician 57kg
• 1980 Beau Art 55,5kg
• 2000 El Picha 58kg
• 2007 Hunting Tower 55kg
• 2008 Pocket Power 58kg
• 2010 Bold Silvano 55,5kg
• 2011 Igugu 55kg

For more information, please visit :

www.vodacomdurbanjuly.co.za

Extract from Tab News

THE DURBAN JULY : A CITY'S REFERENCE POINT

“THE DURBAN JULY”

Mick Goss
Summerhill Stud CEOLong ago, before Ben Hur won the first Interdominion, the philosopher Diogenes envisioned a race as big as the Durban July. Clothed under various sponsor’s mantles since its inception in 1897, the great race is to Durbanites what the Melbourne Cup is to Melbourne.

For any self-respecting citizen of Durban, the July is a reference point. A few wounded, fresh returned from the nightmare of Delville Wood, limped around Greyville to see Pamphlet blast home in 1918. The year after the Second World War, the hero named for the cathedral which survived the “blitz”, St Pauls kicked the butt of Moscow, just as the Allies realised they’d licked Hitler, only to inherit Stalin. In 1966, the race was “robbed” of one of its most famous sons, Sea Cottage, through the treachery of a gunman’s bullet. In the same year, an assassin delivered a similar fate to apartheid’s principal architect, the Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd.

Yet it’s hard to explain the July to an outsider. The English and Kentucky Derbies are about the supremacy of genes and the buying power of the ruling classes. The public is allowed to join in for the crowd scenes. The best colt usually wins and is hurried off to stud for fear of losing his value.

Our July is quirky. Got up by the people, for the people. A cross between a horse race and a folk festival. It mocks convention because it’s a handicap, which means the outcome is not preordained. One of the cherished pieces of Durban’s folklore is that any battler can win the July. And a few have, though fewer than mythology allows. In 1977, Dessie Rich, a struggling dairy farmer from our village, turned history on its head with Lightning Shot. The stewards invited him to the committee lounge for a drink. “Thanks,” he said, but he had to rush home to milk the cows.

For the past 116 years, the Durban Turf Club has hosted “Africa’s greatest horserace” on the first Saturday in July. The Birch Bros of Doordrecht, who dominated the national breeding scene for almost half of the last century, produced six of its winners. We rank second, with four that’ve have tasted the green, green grass of home.

Which brings us back to St Pauls. The July was different in 1946, the first time the crowd numbered more than 100,000. These days, horses fly in for the contest with a personal dietician. St Pauls came by train with cattle and sheep, and they unloaded first. He was the pride of Pat Goss, a former stock inspector, who, like some of us, was quite at home with a pair of sheep shears in his hands. And that’s the part that tickles us. In Mooi River, a sheep shearer has always been thought as good as a Sheikh. Better really, because a Sheikh isn’t much use if your merinos need a clip. Mowgli, who was trained from the end box of the Hartford yard, as most of our top horses of that era were, was one of the all-time greats of the South African turf. He may even have been the greatest if it weren’t for a wind affliction which plagued him to death, literally in the end. When he settled the July field in ‘52, he collapsed within yards of passing the post. Minutes later, he rose, Lazarus on four legs, and walked away. Here finally, was proof that racing exists mainly to remind us of our fallibility. Here was the horse that took the round-they-go-again sameness out of the sport. Here was the horse who gave us not one, but ten undying moments.

Mowgli dominated the 50s the way Mohammed Ali dominated the heavyweights in the 1970s, and the analogy is not meant to be trite. Mowgli was that rare thing: a natural. He made the hard things look easy, the mundane look graceful. The qualities which, in any sport, separate the gifted from the sloggers.

Racing is good sport. It is great sport when you see an Igugu and a Pierre Jourdan in full flight down the Greyville straight, tooth-and-nail for the biggest prize in racing. It isn’t always good business, but when you win the July, it most certainly is. Racing is a way of living, and a way of thinking. It has its own language and its own humour. It is loaded with danger, physical and financial, and it comes with a hint of conspiracy. It doesn’t necessarily build character, but it throws up some great characters. Igugu is trained by one of them. Mike de Kock is the man everyone wants to know. He’s become the idol of a social set to which he never belonged, and to which, you suspect, he never wanted to belong. De Kock knows the rich and famous, he has himself become rich and famous. Yet fame has not changed him, not outwardly anyway. He doesn’t conform. He can’t; he isn’t like anyone else.

When de Kock entered the Summerhill box after the July, we asked him if he’d like a drink. “Or is that a silly question?” It was a silly question.

The above is an extract from the 2012/2013 Summerhill Sires Brochure to be released soon. Are you on our mailing list?

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

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

WIN NUMBER 13 FOR VANGELIS

Click above to watch Vangelis making it win number 13…
(Image : Supplied - Footage : Tellytrack)

“THIS IS A GOOD OLD SONG”

And it’s well worth singing. We have a real old pal who’s ailing a bit at the moment, and can do with a tonic. Our relationship with Robert and Robin Muir goes back to Pat Goss’ Durban July celebration party in 1946, when the smallest horse in history, St Pauls, rolled his field in record time. Robin’s mother was the hostess at the Kew Hotel, for a victory party that raged for two days, and the fact the Muirs are patrons of Summerhill 65 years later, is testimony to the value of good friends.

On Thursday, our mutually owned seven-year-old gelding, Vangelis, came home for the 13^th time in his career, pushing his earnings ever closer to the million Rand mark. After five consecutive third places, this was a welcome turnaround and a compliment to the skills of his trainer, Gavin Smith.

There’s a tale attached to Vangelis however, as there is to most good horses. The day he was born, our Foalcare manager, T.K.Nkabinde, proclaimed him a “Derby winner”, and while you may say there have been many of those stories and that he didn’t win the Derby, he’s given us just as much pleasure as one which did. Long before he was weaned, Vangelis came up with a lame shoulder that plagued him for two years of his life, and we wondered whether he’d ever reach the racecourse. That he did, and he did it well, writing his record in black and white. His history of injury though, made him a difficult sell, and it took us close to his third year (he was still on the farm at that stage) to place him. Robert Muir was on safari in South Africa, and he took a couple days out to show his friends Summerhill and the delights of Hartford House.

On a typically fresh autumnal morning, he and his mates accompanied us to the track to watch some horses work, when Vangelis and a bright chestnut with a white blaze, by the name of Imbongi, worked together. They were equally impressive, and Robert indicated he’d like to invest in both.

Before he reached Durban on his return journey, he phoned to say that one of his advisors had suggested he leave the Russian Revival horse out of the package, and wondered if that would be in order. Of course it would be; we had no end of faith in Imbongi, and it wouldn’t be long before he was placed as well with another mate, erstwhile Jockey Club chair and ambassador extraordinaire, Ronnie Napier.

You now know Vangelis’ record, but it’s worth recording that Imbongi went on to become South Africa’s Champion Three-Year-Old Miler, he was a Group winner in the UK, and the victor ludorum at the Dubai Racing Carnival in 2010. His earnings stood beyond R8million at the point of his retirement last month.

There’s an adage in all of this. The likes of Emperor Napoleon, Bold Ellinore and Amphitheatre are a few more of those who were left behind on the farm after the sales, as was this week’s big hero, Black Wing. Who knows what bargains are lurking on our tracks as we write?