Snip, snip: See It Again sees new future

As a businessman, Nick Jonsson has made some difficult and important decisions. Most must have been right as he built a company making humble labourers’ overalls into something approaching a high-fashion brand for the workplace.

As a horse lover, he has just made a tough decision about his best galloper. It might not make much financial sense to casual observers, but it is good news for South African racing fans.

Jonsson’s dual Grade 1 winner See It Again, one of the most popular horses in the country, has been gelded at the relatively advanced age of five – with an eye to racing him for a few more years rather than retiring him to stud.

With great consistency in elite races, with courage and heart clear to see, See It Again was a compelling stallion prospect with every chance of becoming a long-term cash cow for his owner.

Yet the lure of turf glory won the argument.

First trip to the Highveld

Trainer Michael Roberts said the first major target of See It Again’s new, extended career would be late-November’s 2000m Betway Summer Cup in Johannesburg – South Africa’s richest race with a purse of R6-million.

It will be his first trip to the Highveld.

The, now slightly lighter, chestnut will have a prep run over a mile in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal three weeks prior to heading north, Roberts told Sporting Post this week.

The internationally famous former champion jockey said Jonsson had made the final call based on a variety of factors.

“It’s always a tough decision to geld a top horse who has won Grade 1 races, but he has been haemoconcentrating and being allowed to focus on putting his best hoof forward could be the gamechanger,” explained Roberts.

See It Again is sound and has an easy-going temperament, so ornery coltishness was probably not uppermost in considerations.

Haemoconcentration means a thickening of blood due to excessive red cells, arising from a loss of plasma or water from the bloodstream. This often sees male horses lose focus and competitive edge and develop constraining musculature around the shoulders.

According to the veterinary textbook, symptoms of hemoconcentration can include decreased pulse pressure and volume, loss of skin turgor, dry mucous membranes, headaches, hepatomegaly, low central venous pressure, orthostatic hypotension, pruritus, splenomegaly, tachycardia, thirst, tinnitus, vertigo and weakness.

King’s Plate and the Met

If See It Again is relieved of all that, he’ll be much more focused on his job.

Further down the road, Roberts is planning a sojourn in Western Cape for a repeat of his horse’s summer campaigns of recent seasons – with special attention on atonement for a runner-up finish in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate and a fourth in the Cape Town Met.

And it’s not hard to predict a third tilt at the Hollywoodbets Durban July in 2025. See It Again finished second to Winchester Mansion in 2023 and fifth to Oriental Charm this year, enduring rough passages on both occasions.

See It Again’s close relative, Do It Again, another son of Twice Over, famously won two Julys for Jonsson and his owner partners – as a gelding.

Some fans have even suggested an overseas campaign – nowadays a very feasible option, with export protocols eased up considerably.