EMPERORS PALACE SUMMER READY TO RUN SALE 2012

Emperors Palace Summer Ready To Run Sale
(Photo : Gareth du Plessis)

“ALL OF THAT… AND A BIT MORE”

A year (and a change of scene) is an awfully long time in the horse business. In February last year, we took our first major consignment of “second stringers” to the Shongweni Horses-In-Training Sale, where ours were supposed to make up a separate feature of Ready To Run items. They got lost, plain and simple, and they averaged a miserable R18,000, or thereabouts. So we immediately hatched a plan to fall back on the home defences, turn the sale into a unique occasion, and host it in our School Of Excellence. Voila! The Emperors Palace Summer Ready To Run was born with a bang, and reminded us all how much fun this game can be.

Remembering that this sale is made up of just about everything that’s left on the farm, representing an opportunity for everyone from polo players to serious horsemen, and includes those horses that were unwanted at previous auctions, the late maturers, the little ones, the injured, and those the good Lord had endowed with less than perfect engineering, the outcome was amazing. The average was up more than 350%, weighing in at just about R70,000, and while there will always be a few that didn’t make the money you might’ve expected, in broad terms, it was a raging success.

It was evident pretty early on in the day, when the smart cars started to pitch up, that we’d not only under-catered, but there was going to be more money than we originally thought. Remembering, the story about the loaves and the fishes, the catering problem was soon in hand, while racing fans had obviously read their catalogues, watched the DVD, and they knew there were some horses here. They also trusted their own instincts where the specimens were not flawless, looking to the gallops rather, for clues on the future. They know that Pierre Jourdan, Emperor Napoleon, Amphitheatre, Hear The Drums, Black Wing and Imperial Despatch, among the many stars bought off the farm, might not have been perfect in the way they were made, but they were all of that and sometimes a little better, when they hit the races.

The sale was notable for its revelations: a new “white knight”, Brian Burnard, blew in from the North Coast, toting a number of activities on his C.V, including the raising of a herd of “disease free” buffalo. Lasoo in hand, Gavin van Zyl pitched up with him, and at the pre-sale dinner on the Tuesday evening, Burnard announced he was “going wide” the next day, much as the Blue Bulls coach has often been heard to say about his charges.

Well, “wide” he went, to the degree that people like Alec Laird, who arrived at the sale with a fistful of money, bid almost a million Rand on the day and left empty-handed. Wally Brits and Roy Magner, while striking in the lower echelons, were unable to make an impression at the top, taking on variously “Buffalo Bill” and Keith Young, while Alesh Naidoo, indomitable as always, had to bow his head in the end for the big ones.

For a sale that took little more than R600,000 last year, to make more than R3 million this time, we’d have to say, “eish”. The venue was exceptional, as good as anything anywhere in the world, and it was set off by one of those days in the Midlands that make us remember how lucky we are to live here. Toss in the attendance of one of the nation’s top chefs, and Jackie Cameron and her team where always going to deliver. By the time the sun went down, there was obviously much to celebrate; the news this morning is that the party at Hartford House almost saw the sun come back.

Top 5 Lots :

Lot #	Horse	Price (ZAR)	Buyer
31	No Worries	400,000	Brian Burnard
20	Golden Dynasty	240,000	Brian Burnard
49	Wishful To Reality	240,000	Stephen Chetty
36	Reap The Rewards	220,000	Keith Young
22	Gypsey Myth	170,000	Green Farm

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

KAHAL DELIVERS THE K.O.

Kahal
(Photo : Greig Muir)

KAHAL
Machiavellian - Just A Mirage

The August Stakes (Grade 3) is the traditional precursor to South Africa’s richest race on the sand, the R600,000 Emerald Cup (Grade 2). Summerhill has had an enduring record of success with its sand runners, particularly at the top end, the 2009 hero of the big one being Roy Magner and Wally Brits’s, Phunyuka, who took both these events in breathtaking style.

Saturday it was the Kahal gelding, The Mouseketeer’s turn as he picked up the running early in the Vaal’s punishing straight, and plugged on manfully to hold his foes at bay by ¾ length. Bred by our neighbours, Bush Hill Stud, The Mouseketeer is yet another fine advert for the Kahal/Northern Dancer cross, and for those students of pedigrees who like the practice of line breeding, it’s another advertisement for the Machiavellian influence with mares of Northern Dancer parentage, given that both Northern Dancer and Machiavellian, (who carries two strains through Halo and his tail female line) share the same maternal lineage.

Think about it though, and the chemistry is immediately apparent. Kahal is a big, strong, raw-boned individual, the perfect physical foil for the high quality, feminine mares of Northern Dancer and his tribe.

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

ROYAL ASCOT DAY 1 : A GOOD DAY AT THE OFFICE...

Click above to watch Prohibit winning the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr1)
(Image : Perth Now - Footage : At The Races UK)

“…and especially for South African Sprinter, Sweet Sanette.”

Bill Oppenheim
Thoroughbred Daily NewsThe Coolmore legions had good reason to be satisfied with the results from Ascot’s opening day yesterday: they had bought into Canford Cliffs (Tagula) at the end of last year, which looked a pretty smart move after he stopped the 6-year-old wonder mare Goldikova (Anabaa) from notching her 14th Group 1/Grade I win in the meet’s opening race - the G1 Queen Anne Stakes - run over Ascot’s straight mile. Then Frankel, by Coolmore’s world number one, Galileo, scraped home in the one mile G1 St James’s Palace Stakes, run on the round course, while Coolmore’s Zoffany, by the Juddmonte stallion Dansili, upgraded his stallion prospects by running a bang-up second. Then, to finish off the day, their investment in a second Juddmonte stallion paid off when Power (Oasis Dream) finished strongly to give Aidan O’Brien his sixth win in the G2 Coventry Stakes. All in all, a pretty satisfactory opening day; though the weight of expectation which Frankel carried yesterday is transferred today to Coolmore’s So You Think (High Chaparral), as short as 2-5 last night to win today’s G1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

The G1 King’s Stand Stakes over 5 furlongs was nearly poached by the Highlands-bred South African filly Sweet Sanette (Jallad) despite her near scratching after an accident in the preliminaries. She led the best sprinters around a merry dance for every yard except the final twenty five, and you’d have to say this was some compliment to the quality of sprinters in this country.

Formerly owned by Wally Brits and trained by Roy Magner, Sweet Sanette was a very good, but by no means great, sprinter before she left South Africa for Hong Kong, and one can’t help wondering what J J The Jet Plane would have done to this field which included Australia’s second best sprinter, Star Witness.

Even Sweet Sanette’s most ardent supporters would not suggest she was in JJ’s league, and while JJ remains the highest rated male sprinter in the world right now, he can only aspire to the No.1 spot if he can cross swords with the current Australian star, Black Caviar.

It was also a good day for Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte operation. Frankel may only have scraped home in the St James’s Palace Stakes, but his record now reads seven wins from seven starts, and his master trainer - the newly knighted (and slightly embarrassed, as usual) Sir Henry Cecil - will now go off and think about what he wants to ask his colt to do next. Henry mentioned the G1 Juddmonte International (sponsored by the owner) over an extended 10 furlongs at York, even as the wise guys were again trying to talk him into shortening him up to six furlongs. There’s a reason he’s been champion trainer nine times, and it’s not because he listens to the riders in the stands. Besides the fact a runner by their own stallion, Dansili, gave Frankel an almighty scare, Juddmonte could also be pleased that their stallion Oasis Dream - arguably the number two sire in Europe now behind only Galileo - had two winners on opening day: Prohibit in the G1 King’s Stand Stakes over five furlongs; and Power in the G2 Coventry, always the first really important 2-year-old race of the year.

The racing, as always, was fiercely competitive, and there were a few noteworthy performances in defeat - none more so than Goldikova’s loss to Canford Cliffs in the Queen Anne Stakes. Like Zenyatta, she went down fighting, and has now won 16 races, with four seconds and two thirds in her 23 career starts - only once unplaced, in a bog in the G1 Prix d’Ispahan, in her first start of 2009. Prince Khalid’s Cityscape, now a 5-year-old and by Selkirk, ran a lifetime best, finishing third, less than two lengths behind Goldikova; and Godolphin’s 6-year-old Rio de la Plata (Rahy) also ran a good race, in fourth.

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

PHUNYUKA : AUTUMN SAND SPRINT

Click above to watch Phunyuka winning the Autumn Sand Sprint
(Image and Footage : Tellytrack)

AUTUMN SAND SPRINT (Non-Black Type)
VAAL RACECOURSE 1200m SAND
9 MARCH 2010

PHUNYUKA (Slew The Red x Catch Me by Argosy)
5 Year Old Bay Gelding
Owner : Wally Brits
Trainer : Roy Magner
Jockey : Guillermo Figueroa
Breeder : Summerhill Stud
Win Time : 71.08
Career Record : 6 Wins, 12 Places, 25 Starts
Carrer Earnings : R849,755

Phunyuka is a graduate from the Summerhill draft of the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale.

RACE RESULTS

#	LBH	Horse	Kg	MR	Dr	Jockey	Trainer
1	0.00	PHUNYUKA	61.0	102	1	G Figueroa	Roy Magner
2	0.25	SANDY BEACH	62.5	105	4	S Brown	St John Gray
3	1.50	FUZZY CUZZY (AUS)	55.5	91	7	G Wrogemann	Roy Magner
4	1.75	DEEP WATER	58.5	97	12	A Marcus	Charles Laird
5	6.25	RYAN’ A LION	53.5	87	10	S Chambers	Erico Verdonese
6	7.75	LOCHLORIEN	55.0	95	5	G Lerena	Mike Azzie
7	9.00	NORQUINCO (ARG)	59.0	98	6	M Odendaal	Geoff Woodruff
8	9.50	FEARLESS GUN (AUS)	59.5	99	3	C Orffer	Lucky Houdalakis
9	10.00	COPPER TRADER	56.5	93	2	F Naude	Corne Spies
10	11.25	PROCURER	54.0	88	8	S Khumalo	Dominic Zaki
11	11.75	FAIR BRUTUS	61.0	102	11	M Mienie	George Scott
12	14.00	WAITANGI	56.0	97	9	P Strydom	Geoff Woodruff

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

WALLY BRITS : RACING ASSOCIATION OWNER OF THE MONTH

Wally Brits and Roy Magner at the 2007 Emperors Palace Ready To Run Sale
(Photo : Heather Morkel)

SUMMERHILL BREEZE-UP GALLOPS
16 OCTOBER 2009

The Racing Association’s “Owner Of The Month”, Wally Brits, had an uncommonly good September so writes Mike Moon.
 
Not only did his horse, Phunyuka, take the 1450m R600,000 Emerald Cup last Saturday, but his pigeon, The Chief, won him a Nissan bakkie when it flew to victory in a big race from Cradock to Joburg – the second year in succession that he’s scooped the vehicle prize.
 
The affable Wally is well known for his twin racing passions of horses and pigeons.
 
Phunyuka’s win at the Vaal was hugely satisfying. Not only was it the owner’s third Grade 2 success, it also affirmed his judgment over many years of astute buying, breeding and dedication to carefully selected thoroughbred families.
 
Wally raced Phunyuka’s dam Catch Me (by Argosy), who, from just a handful of races, won once and was second in top company before suffering serious injury. Going against advice that the filly be put down, Wally nursed her back to health.
 
Catch Me eventually went to Summerhill Stud in a first-foal exchange deal. Wally bought her second foal – by Slew The Red – for R90 000 on the Ready To Run Sale.
 
Although he was interested in the family, it was the two-year-old Phunyuka’s sale breeze-up gallop in heavy going at Summerhill that turned Wally’s head. “All the other horses were floundering in the mud, heads going up and down, but his head stayed rock steady; he ploughed through like a truck. I had to buy him.”
 
That sharp observation had its reward on Saturday when the gelding, after losing position from a handy draw in blistering early pace, powered through the worst of the kickback and some particularly soft sand to mow down the strong field in the straight.
 
Wally now also owns Catch Me’s two subsequent foals – Bambelela (by Russian Revival), who won in Durban recently, and Baleka (by Labeeb), an unraced three-year-old that Wally says is “the best of the lot”.
 
Catch Me is a half-sister to the stallion Damage Is Done (by Rakeen) that Wally stands at Golden Acres and whose first foals he raves about.
 
Phunyuka will be given a break from the sand, where he has a lofty merit rating, for a campaign on the turf, where the rating is generous.
 
There seems no reason he won’t do well on grass. The fitting of blinkers has been a key factor in him picking up a gear or three.
 
What is racing man Wally Brits’ next target?
 
“I haven’t won a Grade 1 yet. But it’s coming, don’t worry,” he says. You wouldn’t bet against it.