Last week Duncan Barry and David Hepburn-Brown drove up to the National Yearling Sales talking up a storm about their shared passion, horses and their new business ventures into self-catering cottages.
As David refused to drive up in Duncan’s 31 year old Opel that has become a legendary topic for banter at the sale, it was the 22 year old Land Cruiser that made the trip up.
Riverton boss Duncan Barry – looking forward to today(Pic- HamishNIVEN-Photography)
Overnighting at Kuilfontein Paddocks, David enjoyed a 5km run in the fresh Karoo air last Thursday morning whilst Duncan delighted in taking photographs of the sun setting on his walk. They both said that it was a pleasure catching up with Penny Southey. And reminiscing about the racing personalities of old, Penny recounted that there were 36 breeders when she was secretary of the Karoo Breeders!
As a young man working at a stud farm in Ireland, Duncan told his father that it was his call if he wanted to stop breeding thoroughbreds to only concentrate on growing vines and fruit and also said that he shouldn’t expect him to return to Riverton as all he wanted to do was work with these magnificent animals.
Fortunately, after many successes and the standing of top grey stallion, Jamaico (Fr), the late George Barry decided to continue breeding. So it was that Duncan took over the breeding operation on his return and soon after the grey Russian Fox (USA) came to Riverton. Russian Fox went on to become Champion First Season Sire and it took 17 years for any stallion to beat his record for the most winners in a season! In 2006 both Jet Master and Captain Al surpassed this record.
In 2015 Captain of All became the top merit rated horse in South Africa and went on to be ranked the second fastest horse in the world. This remarkable achievement planted the seed that one should follow your passion and the rest will come.
So it was in the year that standing as a stallion at Klawervlei that Captain of All’s progeny would put in him on the road to win the Champion First Season Sire award for 2018/19 that Duncan decided to lease the vines and the fruit farms to his second cousin.
Duncan captured the Kuilfontein beauty
Today Duncan tells us that he is a blessed man being able to focus all his attention on his beloved horses.
And his trip to Nationals has already been capped as he got to Turffontein minutes before the Listed Spook Express Handicap on Saturday to see the Riverton-bred She’s A Cracker win well.
