ALL EYES ON NATAL

The feature season now is starting in KZN with runners making their presence felt as they prepare for some of the bigger races here later in the year. The juvenile features held at Clairwood were evidence of this when fillies and colts raced over sprint distances in preparation for the forthcoming bigger races. The filly Counterpoise notched up her second win in a row and in the colts race Reign As Kings remained unbeaten in his first three starts! We had two colts from Ambleway that raced in the colts sprint - POTENT POWER and LOVESTRUCK. The former seemed to race too keen and had nothing to come and LOVE STRUCK ran on well to finish 3rd for Alesh Naidoo and Anthony Govender. Well done to you both and conditioner Paul Lafferty who will be able to aim him at longer distances too.

LOVE STRUCK had already won in his debut, over 1200 meters the time before this good run, and was also running on well which indicates that he may progress over further in time.

A win that was very special to all involved was that of SHARK ATTACK (pictured). This horse races for The Nicholas Ray Foundation the nomininee being Rikki Smit. It aids people who have been injured in horse riding accidents and is a really good cause. The Sharks players are large supporters of this organization and it was great to see him win followed up by the Sharks devastating win against the Reds the next day! Ambleway schooled the horses dam FAR AND AWAY and also prepared SHARK ATTACK for racing with conditioner Bart Rice. Well done to everyone involved in this win!

On the same night MR GIGILO won again over a mile for The Moodley Racing Team. This colt was purchased here at Ambleway by them to race with Garth Puller and he certainly looks like he is now maturing into a super horse. Well done to the team…Ganas and Strini Moodley!

Michael Roberts has won with two of our graduates BARANOVA and BOLD PRINCESS. The former is a filly he bred by Joshua Dancer and his wife Verna races her, and the latter is a daughter of Dolphin Street, an Auzzie import, who won again for the Cassel family. The Cassel family were again rewarded with the win of FESTIVAL SPIRIT who now is trained by Lucky Houdelakis. He was originally in KZN with Michael. Well done to you all!

Another two winners in Gauteng were COSMOGENIC and HEN PARTY. The former is owned by Roland Bouwer and has run some close up races for him and her conditioner Stan Ferreira. The filly HEN PARTY is owned and bred by St. John Gray and she won well over a distance of 1800 meters. He also had quite a few placed horses, it looks like his horses are worth following.

In the Cape we were successful with one of the Spectrum colts we prepared for the Ready To Run two years ago……TRANSCENDENT. He was prepared for Highlands Stud his breeders, and sold at the Graham Beck Reduction Sale last year. This horse has been knocking on the door over sprint distances and he rewarded his owners Messrs Brian Katzen and Braam van Huuysteen, and trainer Burger with a useful win.

The Cape Sale Book 2 was held at the beginning of March and we were sent 5 yearlings from KZN conditioner Dennis Drier to grow out and later school for training. Among them were two babies by Silvano - Lot 370 and lot 340. Both of these individuals are neat and compact type of horses….the colt is very smart and the filly although smaller at this stage is compact too. They do also have great natures and are a pleasure to work with. He also purchased a very energetic filly by Dynasty - lot 179 that is really pretty and typical of those he trains already (BEACH BEAUTY, HAPPY HEART and GOLDEN SLIPPER). The National Emblem filly - lot 189 is very well grown and is out of a filly we schooled here and Dennis trained - SET FOR SUMMER. She really is a smart filly and has a lovely nature too. The colt lot 68 by Windrush out of Lake Snowy is very neat and well muscled. He is nervous so is taking more time to get used to his new home! He is from a family we are very familiar with as we prepared two of his brothers for Highlands Stud for the Ready To Run Sales…….MICHIGAN and SNOW SPECIAL. It does show how long Ambleway has been pre-training as we know so many of the families having in many cases cared for their dams or relations of horses we are caring for!

The Cape Sale Book 2 appeared to be very successful with the average yearling being sold for R 83 000 compared with last year R50,000. The median price also indicated improvement with the babies selling for R60 000 overall…colts reaching R75 000 and fillies R55,000. The next sale is the National Sale at Germiston at the end of April and if the market keeps rising it looks like it could be a strong sale! We will be attending this sale and are very happy to help with yearling selection and later schooling any purchases made.

We have sent a number of two year olds into training over the past few months, so we are now busy at the farm doing maintenance work which is difficult to do when we are busy with schooling the babies. Some of them, to name a few, that are worth following are BARBOSA (Captain Al x Fine Feather), Silvano x Make My Millenium, Red Ransom x Dame Matico and many others that will come out and run as later two or early three year olds. Older horses to watch for are DYNAMIC STAR, IRON GRAY and AL SHEBA.

We also do have a list of horses that are currently racing and have been close up ,that deserve to be followed- they should win soon….OLIMPIC MADAM, HEADS UP, COME WITH ME, WILD SHOT, UP ABOVE, DANCE ALLEY, JET DOT COM, UP AND RUNNING, FRENCH REEF, CUCUMBER ALLEY, PENNY FARE, GODDESS ATHENA, KISS AND TELL, SPY GLASS, RIVER CARD, ICE GODDESS, TURKISH DELIGHT, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, THINK AGAIN, IKATHI, PERRIER JOUET, FLASH OF VICTORY, MIKES CHOICE, SOUL MATE, LORD LEIGH, LAMORNA, NEVER FOREVER, PLATINUM FOX and INDIAN CONNECTION. ANN TRULOVE, a juvenile daughter of Black Minnalouche, ran on well in her debut to finish placed for the Drier yard………watch her in her next start.

Last week end was the Super Saturday Carnival in Dubai and we South Africans had interests to follow in all the races. All eyes were on locally bred Bold Silvano but sadly he did not run as expected. Other horses to feature in the money were Musir, August Rush, Nocturnal Affair all in graded races! Mike De Kock scored with two of his international horses Master Of Hounds and Micdaam and Herman Brown won with Michail Glinka. These horses will be great to follow again hopefully on World Cup Night at the end of March.

We are going to see our son James in Dubai for a week at the end of March to coincide with the World Cup Race Meeting. The farm will be left in the very capable hands of my assistant Candice Davidson who can be reached on her cell 082 933 8442 if you need any assistance in our absence.

That is all the news for now. Enjoy your racing!

Jane Trotter