Dennis Drier took a string of horses to the Cape to compete in the big races and he has had a season to remember where he notched up four graded races and culminated with a wonderful 3rd by BEACH BEAUTY, in the highlight of the season, the Cape Met! She had a super successful season there having won the Grade 2 Calula Services Premier Handicap, beating the colts, and the Grade 1 Maine Chance Paddock Stakes, before this placed run in the Met. He also won a G3 -The Cape Classic and was placed twice in Grade 1 races with CHAVA DE OURA, including the Cape Guineas where he ran second! His last run may have been a bit short for him being a 1000 meters sprint, however he still ran 4th to the champion sprinter What A Winter in the Cape Flying Championship. Apart from big wins with Ambleway graduates he also picked up some black type with Sunshine Rock, Torro Bay and Miss October! At present he is lying 5th on the trainers log in the country! Well done to the team Drier!   The Cape Premier Sale was really successful for the sellers being up 20%on the last sale! The average was also the highest ever being R484 000 with the colts average being R529 and the fillies R412! It was extremely difficult to buy horses and the top priced horse was a Silvano colt consigned by Maine Chance and sold at R3.3 million! Highlands were next top price vendors as they sold a son of Dynasty for R3million and Klawervlei reached the 3rd highest price with a son of Trippi that went for R2.7 mil. The sale once again showed that progeny by the active big five stallions sold well….Trippi,Dynasty, Captain Al, Silvano and Western Winter were the most popular sold! The ill fated Jet Master was popular too, this being his last crop to sell.   Overall the sale was a huge success for the vendors as the organisers had trimmed back the number of horses sold and the sale still totalled the same figures as last year with fewer horses!   Internationally our horses from South Africa have faired very well in Dubai with Mike De Kock having won 3 big races with local horses. Firstly the son of National Assembly, Soft Falling Rain pulverised the field in the Guineas Trial retaining his unbeaten run of 5 straight victories. Then he followed this win up with a great win in the Guineas, a Group 3, on Mikes birthday! What a present……He was bred at Highlands Stud farm in the Cape and must be one of the last runners to represent his sire!  National Assembly has already sired top horses in particular of international stature in Dubai namely National Currency and NATIONAL COLOUR in the UK!   The Apache won a very gutsy race in the Grade 2, Rashidiya, where it looked like he had no where to go and fought his way gamely through a gap to win! He was bred at Scott Bros here in KZN and is by Mogok, already a proven stallion in the US of siring Gypsy's Warning a Grade 1 winner there.   

 

  It is always sad to hear of top stallions passing on …locally National Emblem died and overseas Generous (the Derby winner who was rated 139 just below See The Stars at 140 lbs) passed away!  National Emblem, a son of National Assembly , had won 15 races including 3 Grade 1 races and was the sire of 50 stake winners and among these he sired 10 individual Grade 1 winners! A number we can remember well including Buy And Sell, Nhalavini, Rebel King, POTENT POWER, Rip Curl, Shea Shea etc.  

 

There is now his son Rebel King to hopefully follow in his footsteps at stud!   On the positive side we are all aware that the best racehorse of our time, Frankel has retired to stud being unbeaten in 14 races. He was recently ranked 147 lbs by Timeform which makes him the highest racehorse ever! He is the only horse to have been voted the Champion as a 2, 3 and 4 year-old of his year!   

 

His dam Kind recently foaled down a full brother, being also by super sire Galileo, to him. His development will be watched with great interest.       In KZN we have 2 Horses In Training sales to attend this week….at Summerhill on 20th they have a draft of Ready To Run Horses that are being auctioned, and at Shongweni on the following day 21st, Michael Holmes is auctioning Horses in Training for all interested in purchasing a racehorse. We will be helping sell at the latter sale some of the Scott Bros Two Year olds that were at Ambleway and those being sold by Klawervlei…….so see you there and enjoy your buying!   We started off the Met day on a very positive note when VARIKATE won for the Snaith team. This daughter of Var that was bred by Bill Nelson, and raced by Jim Mahony had notched up 3 victories over sprints. She has got stronger and looks a typical sprinter! We had a great day with graduates BEACH BEAUTY running 3rd in the  Cape Met, a Grade 1 , followed up by placed runs with GRASP YOUR DESTINY and JET EXPLORER.  

 

 In PE several of our stalwarts have found form winning their latest starts…IRON GRAY has just notched up a hattrick of wins for trainer Wiese over a mile, IRISH MAID won again for Gavin Smith over 1400 meters and SOLAR FLIGHT surprised his new connections and trainer Strydom with a win over 2400 meters! Congratulations to all of you.   In Kimberley we were chuffed with the win of RUBY QUEEN a daughter of Mogok who won again. She was bred at Scott Bros in KZN!   St John Gray has given some of his horses a short break over the Festive Season and it has paid off as he has recently led in 4 winners from Ambleway…….FESTIVE INTERLUDE,VIDEO GAMES,YER MAAN and COME WITH ME. These horses have won over the distance of a mile or 1800 meters and were all bred by St John and sired by his stallions ANNOUNCE, Sarge and Jam Alley. Most of their dams are also graduates of Ambleway having been schooled here several years back…BE MY GEM, CHEERS, FESTIVE WAYS and SUMMIT SEEKER! Congratulations to all connected to these horses and to Hadlow Stud who raised many of them.   Locally Michael Roberts scored a double with speedsters…..INDIAN CONNECTIN and LAMORNA. Well done to all of their happy connections as they are not spring chickens……LAMORNA is now 6 and INDIAN CONNECTION is 5. Well done to all for their patience!   ICE GODDESS scored for Pat and Henry Devine on the same day as LORD LEIGH had broke his maiden for the Drier yard. LORD LEIGH has been knocking on the door for sometime and won for his group of new owners…Ryan Mathyssen,Jason Airey ,Robert Prior and Martin and Stacey Rohwer and his "older " owners Dean Hayman,Charles Koster and Ian and Luke Longmore. Well done to you all as he was also bred at Charlie Kosters. ICE GODDESS won again for the Bass team, after many wet days where she did not enjoy the going! Congratulations!   THE RIVER won well for Craig Eudey over 1200 meters. He had already run well in his first two starts and rewarded his owners Steve Shepstone, Max Mc Connel and Clodagh Shaw with an impressive victory! Well done to them, this son of Joshua Dancer does not look like stopping there!   There is along list of horses that deserve following in their next few starts…….KALAAM,MR PATMAN,GALLIPOLI, TULLYNALLY, TARGET FIVE, THE SHARK, SHARK ATTACK, FORMATION, IKATI, COLOURFUL JET, WIND ATYOUR BACK, SOUTH RANGER, HEADS UP, HALLOWED, QUICK DELIVERY, GRAMMATICA, THRESHOLD, ORANGE BLOSSOM, SHIMMERING JET, NOMENULTURE, PSALTERY,TRANSCENDENT, ROLL CALL and COSMOGENIC.   Watch these horses win soon! 

 

 

Image Watkins, DRC