AMBLEWAY CHAMPIONS

AMBLEWAY is delighted to be associated with the Equus Awards winners and nominees for the forthcoming KwaZulu-Natal Awards and Eastern Cape Awards!

At the Equus evening the award of Breeder of the Year was given to Mauritzfontein Stud who had bred winners of top races last year including the Summer Cup, the Derby and first and second in the Gold Cup! Congratulations to Mrs Bridget Oppenheimer and to her hard-working team at the Stud headed by Gavin Schaefer! It has been a wonderful opportunity to be associated with the "Queen Mum" of racing having schooled many of her home-bred progeny by top stallions Fort Wood and Strike Smartly last year. In our first crop of babies we have seen BULSARA win and run a cracking second in the Grade 1 Premier's Championship and a daughter of Horse Chestnut, CASHEW NUT win her first two starts for Gavin van Zyl. TWO TONE, a smashing son of Strike Smartly won his debut for Wendy Whitehead and she has another very useful son of Fort Wood, NIGHT TIME in the wings who should win soon. Robbie Sage has won with FORESTATION, and I see he bought the full brother at the two-year old sale. Robbie also trains MRS BROCK, who broke her maiden recently. We look forward to seeing those with Craig Eudey hit the track soon!

Jet Master was awarded the Champion Stallion for the third year in succession and a large part of this is, of course, due to his Champion son, Pocket Power, who was also Horse of the Year. It has been an absolute privilege to school horses for Pat and Henry Devine, the proud owners of Jet Master for the past few years. We have had very good babies go through here already in the past, including the filly SOFT LANDING and in this last crop, the Cape Winter Classic filly LOVE IS IN THE AIR. JET TYCOON was a facile winner of his first two starts and looks useful. We also schooled the filly SWINGING JET who placed in the listed East Cape Paddock Stakes this year. The last crop of horses has just gone into training now, some in the Cape and some in Gauteng and we will watch these with interest. Congratulations also to Marsh Shirtliff and Mike Bass

Various horses that have been racing internationally were given awards including NATIONAL COLOUR, whom we spelled here before she went overseas to Dubai. She has run very well in the United Kingdom, having been placed in a few big races there. Well done to her connections, Chris van Niekerk and trainer Sean Tarry. We have recently spelled another Dubai candidate - LIZARD'S DESIRE for Mike de Kock. He won some very good staying races in Port Elizabeth including the Derby and then ran a cracking third to Dan De Lago in the KwaZulu-Natal Derby. He has now been nominated to be the Champion Three-Year Old Colt at the Eastern Cape Awards. He has now gone into quarantine and will join the internationally successful team of Mike de Kock when he heads for Dubai in the near future.

Last year's Equus Champion Stayer, who won both the Grade One Classic and the Grade One Derby, was schooled here at Ambleway last year and has now been featuring in the UK. KING'S GAMBIT, a very good-looking son of Silvano, ran a good third in a Gr2, the Sky Bet York Stakes and will be seen in action again there soon. He is worth following as he certainly enjoyed the soft-going here and might well be faced with the same type of going when he races in the UK.

In KwaZulu-Natal we are delighted to be associated with the top conditioner, Dennis Drier. He has been a strong, loyal supporter of Ambleway for several years and we have followed his successes over the past seasons. He has been Champion Trainer for some years and was only recently challenged by the strong Mike de Kock yard in KwaZulu-Natal ably run by Nathan Kotzen. The Drier/de Kock yards fought out the Championship again this season and the result was only decided in the last few days of the season with two wins separating them both! Well done to the Drier yard for their 66 wins. To Dennis, Stuart and the whole team at Summerveld - congratulations to you!

Two successful horses from the Drier yard have been nominated to receive awards at the forthcoming KZN Awards evening - SHARKS BAY and CHARMING LADY. SHARKS BAY, the racy son of Australian

CHARMING LADY reeled off a number of successes in a row over sprint distances and she has been nominated for the KwaZulu-Natal Champion Older Mare award. This filly by Winter Romance, who is owned and bred by Hans Wagenaar and Owen Jones, really has been a model of consistency and certain deserves the award!

It will be interesting to see the results at the KwaZulu-Natal Awards later this week.

Apart from these abovementioned top horses Dennis Drier has some very useful three-year olds that have shown mettle over the last month - CLEARLY SILVER and JO PIPER. CLEARLY SILVER is a son of Silvano who is unbeaten having won two races in a row. His last start he again pulverised opposition to win in fine fashion. Well done to his Hong Kong owner, Mr Lau and to the Drier team. Also, JO PIPER, a very strong daughter of Goldmark has caught the eye, having won her debut by 8 lengths and then followed this up by scoring again over 1000m in open company by four lengths. This filly is owned by the Toweel family and looks like she has developed into a very useful sprinter.

Both of these horses certainly look like they have a bright future ahead and deserve following. Congratulations again to the Drier team - you have had a great season!

Ambleway has sent many of their older horses into yards now and the situation here has changed from having lots of older two- and three-year olds and we now have lots of horses that have just turned two in the yard. In addition to sale horses we have also been sent a number of two-year olds from farms to school. We are delighted to have recently received a draught from Highlands Stud to prepare for the Ready to Run Sale. Among them are 8 very well-bred horses by top stallions Jallad, National Assembly, Count du Bois, Camden Park, Spectrum and Wind Rush. Mauritzfontein has also recently sent down a draught of 14 horses including progeny by champion stallion Fort Wood and many by the new improving stallion, Strike Smartly, to be prepared for training by trainers Wendy Whitehead, Craig Eudey and Robbie Sage. We also received a draught of 9 very nice two-year olds from the Two-Year Old Sale from regular supporters Dennis Drier, Craig Eudey, Michael Roberts and Ronnie Bouwer. Included are some very good individuals by top sires, Silvano, Jallad, Joshua Dancer, Caesar and new stallions, Surging River, Cataloochie and Right Approach.

It was interesting to see the Two-Year Old Sale had such strong support. Everyone present was surprised with the strength of the middle market. There were fewer horses sold for big prices so the average was down on last year, however, the median price was up from last year especially for colts. This result is very encouraging for breeders and racing in general as it does reassure us that the racing industry still appears to be alive and well!

We have had success in other centres including in Port Elizabeth, LA DESTINA, MIRASOL and USEMELIKA have won again and in Kimberley SENOR SADDLER won again over a sprint distance. In Gauteng ANUTHABA and BERNABEU have won again. BERNABEU, of interest, has won two in a row for his new trainer, Lucky Houdelakis, over 1600m. Congratulations to all the connections of these horses!

We have a long list of placed horses which deserve following and I hope these do win soon: SNUGGLER, RUBY ROCKS, PRINCE PASEO, KEY OF GOLD, MISS DUBOIS, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, CAPTAIN HERCULES, MILL VALE, HARBOUR LIGHT, BRIDGE THE GAP, RUBY OF RANGOON, PUSA MOYA, SWINGING JET, GINDONDOR, NATIONAL HUNT, PRIVATE PRINCESS, COMMANDS GLORY, GIANT'S JEWEL, VILAYET, MZINGELI, CANDY TUFT, RED KIDMAN, NORTH SKY, KING'S WINGS, FOLLOW YOUR DREAM, RISE AGAIN, NIGHT TIME, FLIGHT QUEEN. We wish the owners and connections of these horses the best of luck in the next few races.

This is a very exciting time of year for breeders as they are very busy foaling down horses and obviously, along with the foals, come lots of dreams for the future. We were very delighted for our seven time winning mare, FINE FEATHER, to produce a very strong son of Captain Al at Arc En Ciel - thank you very much to Craig Carey and all his hard workers, we are delighted to have a very strong, healthy son of Captain Al. He did very well at the Equus Awards having received a special award there for achievement as a stallion and he was also the 2009 South African Champion Sire of Two-Year Olds. Congratulations to all my partners, Rob Alexander, Ian Longmore and Bruce Campbell! We are all very delighted to be able to watch the progress of this foal.

Good luck to all the other prospective people who are awaiting foals and we hope that you produce something that is exciting as we are.

That's all for now - enjoy your racing!

JANE TROTTER