Praise be for rich people handing out cash

When a new owner first gets into racing, they supply the cash and the horse people supply the experience.

After a few seasons, the cycle is complete: the horse people have the cash and the owner has the experience.

There’s a lot of truth in that Australian saying, but it doesn’t go on to reveal that many of these owners stay in racing despite their nominally lighter wallets. They’re having so much fun that they’re more than happy to carry on redistributing cash.

In South Africa, if it wasn’t for wealthy people acting like cheerful ATMs, horse racing would be in trouble – if alive at all. A struggling economy might have seen the industry collapse if rich folk didn’t need the spiritual and emotional fulfilment that galloping horses gives them.

Follow the money. Horse auction sales are booming.

Last weekend, a Cape Racing sale of young horses recorded a 10.7% increase in aggregate takings over last year’s event, with an amazing 43% rise in the median price paid.

August’s Two Year Old Sale in Joburg eclipsed the 2022 edition by 23% – with similar bullishness at the KZN July sale and the National Yearling Sale in April.

The backdrop to all this is a national economic growth rate of less than 1%.

Maine Chance offers relief

This week, news dropped that one of the country’s biggest and most successful thoroughbred breeding operations, Maine Chance Farms in the Robertson Valley, had purchased a historic, smaller neighbour, Litchfield Stud – birthplace of the great Victory Moon.

Maine Chance is owned by the Jacobs family, eminent German and South African horse breeders for generations, and Litchfield is being sold by the Jacobs’s good friends the Winshaws, who are retiring.

The local racing world is very relieved that the property remains a thoroughbred stronghold.

This relief is well expressed by Graeme Hawkins, boss of KZN racing, who commented on Sporting Post: “We are truly blessed to have such wonderful supporters of South African horse racing and breeding at a time when their investment is crucial to the future sustainability of the sport and industry…

“The purchase of Litchfield by Andreas Jacobs is another huge positive step forward and we are indebted to him and the likes of Greg Bortz, Owen Heffer, Gaynor Rupert, Susan Rowett, Mary Slack, Jessica Jell, Lady Laidlaw, Sabine Plattner, the Kieswetters, and so many more business icons! They could all have invested their money elsewhere, but their passion for, and financial support of, horse racing and breeding in our country is greatly appreciated by all of us who cannot contemplate life without the racehorse.”

But what is it exactly that keeps such people involved and sharing their cash?

A hint of an answer might come from Les Carlyon, an esteemed Aussie writer, who said of racing: “…an addiction, a romantic quest, a culture and a certain sense of humour … loaded with danger, physical and financial, and … with a hint of conspiracy”.