Tim Rowe Column
Brae Sokolski and Ozzie Kheir are certainly generous.
The prominent Melbourne-based owners – who have the likes of Group 1 winners Verry Elleegant, Incentivise and Hitotsu in their “stable of stars” – have given away shares in two of their most valuable fillies, Magic Millions 2YO Classic winner and Golden Slipper hopeful Coolangatta and three-year-old Hinged, to their trusted advisors.
Hinged, a daughter of Worthy Cause who was plucked from Queensland after winning five of her seven starts as a two-year-old for Toowoomba trainer Michael Nolan and owner-breeder Dr Kim McCasker, won last Saturday’s Surround Stakes, going one better than her second in the Flight Stakes last spring.
Among the owners of Hinged, who was bought by Sokolski and Kheir at the end of her two-year-old year and transferred to trainer Chris Waller, is Yarraman Park Stud general manager Matt Scown, who also assists in the running and selection of Sokolski’s burgeoning Yes Bloodstock empire.
“We couldn’t have asked for anything better, really. Brae had a massive day (with three Group 1 winners), but I am lucky enough to be involved with Hinged myself, so it was my first Group 1 winner and words couldn’t explain it, I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Scown said in Melbourne on Sunday while undertaking his duties for Yarraman at Inglis Premier.
“I think when you’re buying a tried horse you can take the pedigree out of it to an extent, and I mean she was a filly who was running great times and winning by margins, and Brae really liked her, so we decided to persevere and we were lucky enough to be able to buy her.
“Another fortunate thing is that Brae gifted me the share, so I am very lucky and Brae has looked after me well!”
And there is the promise of more success to come.
“Her run in the Flight Stakes was the second run since we’d had her and she was incredible to run second, but she was still a lightly–framed filly then and needed to come on,” Scown said.
“Chris (Waller) always said that, so after the spell and when we saw her first-up in Sydney, she looked like a completely different horse.
“She’d really matured and needed the time to develop and I think this is going to be a really good prep for her.”
Sokolski’s close friend Kheir and John O’Neill, another high-profile owner, last year gifted a share to Ciaron Maher Racing’s bloodstock manager Will Bourne in a then unraced filly by Written Tycoon, Coolangatta.
Bourne in turn gave the share to his mother Debra for her birthday. Coolangatta has already won $1.4 million and she is expected to target the Slipper first-up.
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Champion South African trainer Mike de Kock is regrouping after the effects of Covid knocked around his stable and racing in general his home country.
While racing is booming in Australia – as evidenced by the level of demand again experienced at the Premier sale – de Kock believes the sport in his native South Africa has “hit rock bottom”.
“It has been tough. Covid near killed my Dubai business, but we’re hoping to revive that and get it going again,” he said.
“In South Africa, I am down 30 per cent (in horse numbers), but I think everyone in South Africa is down 30 per cent. That’s just a fact.
“The horse population has dwindled and it’s the economics (of the sport), I guess, but I would like to think that we’ve hit rock bottom and that we’re on the mend.”
De Kock, who has been in Melbourne visiting his son, Cranbourne trainer Mathew, and his newly–born grandchild Liam, hopes renewed investment by wagering company Gold Circle in horse racing can turn around the sport’s fortunes in South Africa.
“There’s a new racing company – the previous one went bankrupt – called Gold Circle, which is injecting a lot of energy into the game,” he said.
“I’d like to believe that it is really on the up. It’s not just racing, the economy’s not great in South Africa. There’s a lot of change and I think there’s going to be a lot more change, people are going to find their feet and I get a positive vibe out of where the industry’s going.
“Yes, there’s going to be teething problems, that’s for sure, and there’s probably going to be a lot of tears still, but I think we’re heading in the right direction.”
Another issue which places the South African industry at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the world is the arduous equine quarantine restrictions placed on horses leaving the country due to the threat of African horse sickness.
Current regulations force horses into various quarantine facilities for up to six months, depending on where the animal is being sent to.
“I know I bang on about it like a stuck record, but it would transform our game if we were able to export on a level playing field,” de Kock said.
“The rest of the world does it and we do have science in place to be ready for it (to protect other countries against an outbreak of the deadly disease), but we have not been given the chance to implement it.”
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It was revealed during Racing Victoria’s half-year financial update earlier this week that the peak body had given up attempting to run in-school education programmes marketing the sport to the next generation.
Outgoing RV chief executive Giles Thompson reportedly blamed “wokeism” for schools rejecting racing industry initiatives being conducted within the state’s education system, and that it was too hard to gain traction because parents who were anti-racing, and gambling, were influencing principals’ decisions on certain curricular activities.
While RV and other governing bodies grapple with the long-term impacts such a stance may have on racing, individual trainers, jockey, owners, breeders and stud farms can certainly do their part.
And they are. Coolmore Australia, for instance, on Wednesday hosted students from the local Jerrys Plains primary school, with industry figure James Bester on hand to provide insight into yearlings’ conformation and traits to look for.
Yes, the students in the Hunter Valley are more likely to be attuned to the industry given its prominence in the region, but events such as Coolmore’s could point one child towards a career, or at the very least an interest, in the sport.
You only have to watch a sportsperson, be they a footballer, cricketer, tennis player or an Olympian, for example, visit a school and the children will talk about the experience for days, and it often leaves a lasting impression on many of the young people they interacted with.
Thoroughbred Breeders Australia runs its Fast Track education program to entice young people into the breeding industry, while racing has its industry-funded Thoroughbred Industry Careers traineeship, overseen by Lindy Maurice. Both have been runaway successes.
But industry businesses and its leading figures fostering relationships with schools is vital to its long-term prosperity, even if the impact can’t be immediately measured.
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Lastly, but not least, news broke earlier this week that Rebel Dane would be on the move to NSW. The Group 1-winning sprinter had spent the last three years at Glen Eden Stud in Victoria.
Glen Eden’s Rory O’Brien, someone who chose to follow his passion by working in the breeding industry when perhaps there may have been more lucrative opportunities for him outside it, understandably was devastated by the decision. Rory wears his heart on his sleeve.
The owners of Rebel Dane, the sire of last Saturday’s Sweet Embrace Stakes winner Fireburn in Sydney, are entitled to do what they have. It’s no different to a trainer losing a horse or a jockey being sacked by an owner. It is part of the business.
It is a blow to Glen Eden and O’Brien but his commitment and work ethic, I am sure, will see him bounce back and make a name for himself in the years to come.