Breeder David Southey, one of the last remaining stalwarts still active in the Karoo area, will be a notable absentee at this week’s National Yearling Sale.
For the first time in 55 years, his Southford Stud will not be represented at the time-honoured auction.
A third-generation Karoo breeder, David explained the reason for his absence: “My crop consists mainly of yearlings by Admiral Kitten and in this financial climate, I thought it would be suicidal to offer the progeny of an unproven stallion against the top in the country.
“I am gambling on him having winners after the Nationals which will make them more buyable at later sales. I have entered a number for the KZN sale and just hope that it was the right decision! I am quietly confident, because his first three runners have all finished in the money.”
David, who stands the Gr1 winning son of Kitten’s Joy on behalf of Moutonshoek, has made a name for himself as a respected vendor at the Nationals.
Admiral Kitten
Southford yearlings are always impeccably turned out, are never overdone and typify the very best of the Karoo breed: quality, good-legged animals with the marvellous bone that comes from the mineral-rich soil.
Educated at St Andrews College and the University of Cape Town, David is married to Kathleen and is the father of daughter Cara and son Malcolm and a proud grandfather of seven grandchildren.
He started Southford Stud at the tender age of 23 in 1966 and also ran father Percy’s Montagu Stud until 1970. Reminiscing on those days, he added: “I started Southford with one mare, Queensmead, which I bought from John Kramer’s mother!”
In those days, the National Sale was still conducted at the old Milner Park Showgrounds.
Then known as the Rand Yearling Sale, it was considered one of the social events of the year, everyone would be dressed to the nines and if you were invited to the Oppenheimer stand, you had arrived.
Yearlings travelled to Johannesburg by train – loaded on cattle trucks which were divided in single compartments by wooden poles.
Prior to the sale, a panel of judges would inspect all yearlings on offer and name a champion colt and filly. In 1960, Percy Southey won the award for the best filly with Levanter, who went on to win seven races.
Yearlings were sold by stud draft, in contrast to the modern day practice of selling in alphabetical order of the dam. David was one of the young, progressive breeders advocating a change in the system and for a good reason.
“If your draft came up right after those of the mighty Birch Brothers, you were in trouble, for the big buyers would have spent their money!” he said.
David was still wet behind the ears when he stood up at an AGM and suggested that the order of sale be changed to the alphabetical system. Needless to say, it created a furore, with those against including revered breeders such as Chairman Alan Robertson, the Birches, Sir Mordaunt Milner, Paul de Wet and the Scott Brothers.
“I took a lot of strain from the ‘Old Boys'”, he quipped, but perseverance paid off and the current system was eventually introduced in the late seventies.
At its peak, Southford was home to about 60 mares, half of which were owned by clients such as Gerald Rosenberg, Ormond Ferraris, Lou Burstein (owner of Durban July winner Chimboraa), Ben Fourie, who owned the dam of Gr1 winner Patchouli Dancer and ‘Tiger’ Wright, whose great broodmare Caprica Firth produced the Gr1 winners Kyle and Sound Of Rhum and is also grandam of champion Kildonan.
Top horses bred by David for his father Percy include the fine sprinter Merlin, a ten-length winner of the SA Nursery, as well as Caption, who defeated the great Gatecrasher in the Bull Brand International.
Reflecting on his breeding career, David said: “It was really aimed at the ‘sprinting’ market where it was easiest to sell. Sending mares to the ‘big’ name stallions in the Cape was a bit above my financial limit so I had to make the best of ‘other’ stallions.”
One of those David stood at Southford was Gilbey Stakes winner Damask, a classy Birch-bred who ended up Champion First Season Sire, having covered only 29 mares.
Douglas Penwill’s wonderful broodmare Just Silk also boarded at Southford. A daughter of SA Oaks winner Attire, she produced the Gr1 winner Liberty Silk and when mated to Damask, bred the Tibouchina and Strelitzia winner Julia Goes and stakes-placed Purple Silk, the dam of Egoli Sprint winner Take Silk.
From his own mares, David bred many of Damask’s stakes winning progeny, notably champion sprinter Grimalkin and the siblings Straight Eight and Glissade, both winners of the East Rand Juvenile Stakes. The latter went on to produce the Java Handicap winner Glider Brigade. Other notable Southford-breds include Johannesburg Merchants winner King Of Jazz, Colourburst, who captured the now defunct SA St Leger and was runner-up in the Gr1 SA Derby, while Mike de Kock trained Gr1-placed Lestat, a leading juvenile of his generation and winner of the Gr2 Gosforth Park Juvenile Stakes.
A notable pinhook was the London News filly Sally Bowles, which David resold at the Nationals for R140 000.
She won the Gr2 KZN Fillies Guineas for Team Valor before her export to the States, where she became a stakes producer. Another Southford-bred stakes winner Alamanda ran third in the SA Oaks and later became dam of Gr1 Golden Slipper winner All Afire.
David knows the trials and tribulations of breeding racehorses only too well. Merensky, successful in the Gr2 Gosforth Park Juvenile Stakes, looked destined for the top but died of colic.
Sadly, that same fate struck Ludwig, a cracking Dynasty half-brother to the popular Gauteng galloper The White Horse. Offered at the 2012 Nationals, the colt became David’s first and only million Rand yearling.
He still recalls that auspicious occasion: “It was unbelievable, I was weak at the knees. Afterwards, I went to the late Chris Gerber’s hospitality area and when (fellow breeder) Rennie Price asked me how much I got for the colt, I could only mumble ‘six figures’!”
Sent into training with Sean Tarry, the colt died before he could reach the track.
David is philosophical. “It was a huge blow,” before adding wryly, “it would have made the mare, for the What A Winter half-brother I offered some years later fetched just R70 000 and he became a six-time winner.”
At last year’s sale, David sold a Global View half-brother to the Gr3-placed sprinter Captain’s Girl. “He was probably one of my best ever yearlings and I recently learned that he has chipped a knee!”
Now 77, David has downsized in recent years, having sold the original farm. He moved onto the adjacent property where he runs just 13 mares.
Sixty years ago, the Karoo was the premier thoroughbred breeding region, boasting more than 50 breeders.
Long gone are such well-known names as the Baileys, the Robertsons and the Dells, breeders of the mighty Hawaii. Gary Player, the last of the big Karoo breeders, is the most recent to have sold up.
Yet David soldiers on and hopefully, will be back at the Nationals in 2022. Along with the Rous brothers Gavin and Trevor of Henham Stud and Gelykfontein stalwart Schalkie van der Walt, this ‘salt of the earth’ breeder continues to keep the Karoo flag flying on South African racetracks.
Long may it continue.
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