Sunday heralds the KZN Premier Mare & Weanling Sale at the magnificent Summerhill Stud in Mooi River. It’s many years since we witnessed anything quite like this. In fact, you have to go back to the days of Arthur Pfaff and Elliodor and Jim Redman, Brian Moore and Foveros since the owners of a stallion singlehandedly proved them by sending principally their own mares in an attempt to get the runners on the track to advertise their credentials.
Linngari – magnificent specimen
There’s no reason why Linngari’s case should be any different, except that his first book of mares in South Africa exceeded 60, so his chances are that much better. His fertility was of the order of 80%, another comfort for those taking up the once-off offer to which reference is made later.
Foveros
But let’s examine his credentials before we get carried away. We all know his international racing record, as the globe-trotter that redefined the international racehorse. R27 million in stakes, Group victories from 1200 to 2000 metres (including 2 Gr.1’s) and Black type performances in 8 different countries.
What matters here though, is the impact he’s had at stud since he started out at the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval in France several seasons back.
As a private stallion, his patronage was always going to be limited, yet despite it all he already has ten Black type performers, five of them Stakes or Group winners. Two of those Group victories as well as a Group One third have come within the past month, while he also has a Group One-performing filly in South America right now.
His most impressive credential though comes with his first crop of any material number, his three-year-olds of last season, when he had among his adversaries two of the most promising stallions France has known in decades, namely Siyouni and Le Havre. Ask any French horseman about these two, and the word “stellar” is invariably part of the vocabulary. By the end of last season, Linngari was second only to Le Havre by three-year-old earnings, with Siyouni in his shadow. Two shares in Siyouni recently changed hands for more than €300 000 each, some kind of compliment to Linngari.
For all the big names that thrilled our sitting rooms on Dubai’s Thursday evenings, none exceeded the following of Linngari in those early days. Nothing could be more appropriate then, than for his progeny to return the thrill to those same people on South Africa’s racetracks at last.
Linngari (Indian Ridge (IRE) – Lidakiya (IRE))
The plan was always to give him the best book he could in his first year, and while the number of mares he has had to keep to sustain the plan was never going to be viable, he’s not only given him that chance, but Linngari’s also attracted the attentions of other breeders at the same time.
The history of breeders who’ve built their famous studs on the back of dispersals like this, is replete in the names of people like the Aga Khan, who bought the eyes out of the Dupre, Boussac and Lagardere stock. Graham Beck built a decades-long dominance of South African breeding which lasts to this day on the back of the Scott Bros, Highlands and Maine Chance mares. Summerhill itself was left with only 26 out of 140 mares when its Tax partnerships matured in 1999; by 2005 it had already annexed the first of nine Breeders’ premierships.
With the additional “sweetener” of returning to Linngari (worth R25,000) at no cost in 2016 for those acquiring “his” mares, this could conceivably be one of those occasions.
The sale is being held on Sunday 15 May at Summerhill Stud in Mooi River. It starts at 13h00.
For further information please contact Michael Homes Bloodstock or Linda Norval on 033 263 1081.
