Helen Elser, Kip Elser and Nicola Coppez
When one thinks of Ireland you think of Guinness, Celtic crosses, green grass, folk music and of course, horses. They say that every family in Ireland still has at least one member who is involved with horses in some way. It is horse country through and through!
Thanks to the Blarney Stone, the Irish also have the gift of the gab and one who certainly inherited this gift is Nicola Coppez, doing a stint in the Cape to help prep some of the draft for the forthcoming CTS Ready To Run sale. Nicola is married to KZN local Marc, and together they run Balmoral Stud in Mooi River.
Despite being a relatively new establishment, the name Balmoral has been popping up with increasing regularity and I was intrigued to find out more.
The Balmoral Team
Nicola is petite, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a directness and steely determination that seems peculiar to horsewomen. She is friendly and smiley, but there is no doubt that she means business and gets things done. Nicola hails from County Antrim in Northern Ireland. She grew up a competitive 3-day eventer (representing her country on several occasions), but as the daughter of racehorse trainer Bertie Fitzgerald, the pull of the racetrack was always there. She did work experience with a number of leading trainers (including Ballydoyle’s Vincent O’Brien), rode as a steeplechase and National Hunt jockey and eventually took out her trainer’s license (which she still holds!).
Marc is a Midlands native, the step-son of Alistair Gordon and an accomplished polo player. While on a polo-playing stint in the UK, he was invited to play polo in Ireland, met Nicola and, well, the rest is history.
The couple originally settled in Plettenberg Bay, where they set up a business producing polo ponies for the international market. The couple are nothing if not organised and structured their business on a 5 year plan. When the rigors of our export protocols became too much, they decided to relocate to KZN. Polo’s loss was racing’s gain. The Coppez’s found a 300 ha property, christened it Balmoral and set about converting it into a top class spelling and pre-training facility.
The Facilities
The farm boasts undulating hills, large paddocks, lots of open space and a variety of surfaces for horses to be prepared on. There are plans to install a treadmill early next year. The Coppez’s place very high store in their staff and insist that all their managers have international experience. They have a complement of 16 work riders, all of whom have been trained at Balmoral with an emphasis on sensitive hands and good balance to get babies off to a good start.
The Philosophy
All Balmoral inmates are given a week to settle in and let down before they are gradually introduced to work. All work is done slowly and progressively and tailored to each horse.
They start horses the old fashioned way with mouthing bits with keys and molasses in order to make good mouths. Their initial training is all done on long-lines, which they take great pride in. Nicola says that single line lunging is an art, and done incorrectly it causes nappy horses and stresses young bones and joints unnaturally. They prefer to start all their young horses on long-lines – first in the paddocks and then progressing to working around the farm, up the lanes, past the tracks and pens and getting the young horses used to the general sights and sounds of a busy working environment.
There is an emphasis on conditioning muscle and bone progressively and they combine long, slow work and sharp, fast work in order to build bone density, muscle mass and develop cardio and respiratory capacity.
Nicola jokes that they are often teased for their policy of ‘one more month’ when asked when horses will be ready, but they have learnt the hard way to take their lead from the horse.
To ensure that the horses are developing and progressing correctly, they have regular visits from top local veterinary and physio practitioners and babies’ joints are X-rayed before progressing their workloads in order to pick up any changes or potential problems as early as possible.
In today’s expensive and highly time-pressured environment, it is not always easy to balance expectations of clients with the needs of the horse, but Nicola says that they have educated their clients to understand that it sometimes takes a little longer in the beginning to save time in the end. And it seems the methods are paying dividends, because from small beginnings, the farm now has a waiting list.
The Clients
Balmoral has forged strong ties with the Eastern Cape and Nicola credits Dorrie and Mark Sham with helping get them off the ground.
In their first season, their main clients were the Shams and the Grant Paddock yard, but their client list now includes the great and good of the racing industry and they have earned plaudits from owners and trainers across the country.
Pin-Hooking
With Nicola’s racing background and the couple’s experience producing polo ponies, they have always had an interest in pin-hooking and with Ready to Run or ‘breeze up’ sales becoming increasingly popular, they have taken a firm interest in this corner of the market and have shown excellent results.
Ready To Run
Mike de Kock and Eamonn Cullen introduced the Coppezs to US breeze-up specialist Kip Elser (Kirkwood Stables). Kip visited the Balmoral facilities several times and been mentoring them and Nicola says that he has helped them take things to new levels.
Unlike prepping a horse for a race, with breeze-up prep, all your energies are focussed on one specific day. Come hail, rain or shine, the horses need to be ready, so they have to stick to a very strict programme. Nicola says their prep consists of a 6-month programme and they work backwards from the date of the sale, but they take pride in the fact that their draft are as genuinely ready to run as possible. However actions speak louder than words and there can be no better evidence of their work than the fact that one of their TBA Ready To Run candidates had its debut run 2 weeks ago.
The Future
When I ask Nicola and Marc where they see themselves in 5 years, Nicola says quite simply that their aim is to be the premier breeze-up specialists in the country.
Is there anything that they would like to see change in the market? Yes. Nicola says that in South Africa, there is still the perception that Ready To Run horses are the ‘squibs’, the ‘ugly ducklings’, the ‘could not sells’ of the yearling sales circuit and it is something she would like to change. When people see a horse that has been on a number of sales, there is a natural suspicion that there must be something wrong. Internationally, there is a big distinction between yearling sale prospects and Ready To Run prospects and they are clearly distinguished and handled differently very early on. Some horses are specifically prepped for yearling sales, while other candidates are specifically kept and prepped for breeze-up sales. Ready to Run sales are big business internationally and our local sales companies are going all out to promote and help our local market. In an ideal world, Nicola would like to see local breeders committing to the programme more fully, by selecting Ready To Run candidates early on as this will really boost buyer confidence at local Ready To Run sales.
There is no questioning the calibre of horses being produced on our local studs and we have been attracting foreign buyers for years. In the words of Kip Elser “A good racehorse can go anywhere in the world, and a racehorse is international currency in and of itself”.
