Wildlife Safari in winning form last Wednesday (photo: Equine Edge)
Wednesday, 19 January 2017, saw a bit of fun pass the post in Kenilworth’s race 3 in the shape of the darkly attractive 3yo son of Querari, Wildlife Safari.
It is a huge feather in the cap of Maine Chance Farms, the Maine Chance Farms stud staff and also Cape trainer Eric Sands and as it was too good a story to pass up, we thought we’d re-tell it here.
Some of the team behind Wildlife Safari (photo: hamishNIVENPhotography)
At the CTICC this week, I spoke to Pieter Johannes, one of the head stud men, who has worked for Maine Chance for just shy of 30 years. Pieter explained that it was thanks to the encouragement of John Slade that the grooms acquired their first broodmare, Wooden Doll. They appealed to Dr Andreas Jacobs, who allocated funds to invest in a mare on behalf of a 35 strong group of the farm’s stud, domestic and agricultural staff. After doing their research, they purchased the Fort Wood mare, Wooden Doll, in foal to Kabool, for R80,000 on the 2008 Grandwest Mare & Weanling sale. She has been a faithful servant ever since, producing a Kabool colt in 2008 (named Woza Friday), a Black Minnaloushe colt (Woza Weekend) in 2009, another Black Minnaloushe colt (Woza Madoda) in 2010, a Silvano colt (Woza Silvano) in 2011, a Silvano filly (Russian Star) in 2012, Wildlife Safari (by Querari) in 2013 and a Philanthropist filly named Wish in 2014. She was barren in 2015 and currently has a Vercingetorix foal at foot and is currently in foal to Querari.
Pieter explains that owning a mare and being able to produce and sell the foals at auction – even split across the 35 shareholders – is a massive advantage for them. He explains that they are not in a position where they can easily earn substantial lump sums and receiving an annual boost of a few thousand rand at sales time has helped them all put away some savings.
A New Adventure
Business partner Eric Sands (photo: hamishNIVENPhotography)
Although all of Wooden Doll’s previous progeny sold successfully, Wildlife Safari failed the scope and was deemed unsuitable as a commercial sale prospect. Faced with the dilemma of what to do next, the grooms opted to take a chance. With assistance from the farm, a tie-back was performed, the colt was gelded and Eric Sands agreed to a deal to train the horse for them. “He calls us his business partners,” smiles Pieter. “Eric phones us regularly to keep us informed on how the horse is doing.”
Wildlife Safari debuted at Kenilworth on 19 November 2016 in a 1200m Maiden Plate, finishing 15.3 lengths back with S’manga Khumalo in the saddle. He ran a much improved race second time out on 28 December 2016, finishing 1.35 lengths 4th in a 1400m Maiden Plate at Kenilworth under Oswald Noach and on 18 January he finally repaid their faith in him, winning at the third time of asking, with Corne Orffer in the saddle.
As it is costly to register a syndicate, Wildlife Safari runs in the Maine Chance colours, but Pieter says the grooms are enjoying their first racing experience so far. Because of commitments at the CTICC, the group were not able to attend last Wednesday’s race to lead in their winner, but Eric brought them a DVD of the race so that they could all watch the replay.
Where to from here?
There have already been offers to purchase Wildlife Safari, but the group have decided to hang on to him for now.
Here’s wishing them a lot more fun.
