Journalist: David Thiselton – Gold Circle Publishing
15 MAY 2013
Vercingetorix has caused a wave in South African horseracing over the past two weeks, but the most exciting aspect of his rise from unknown quantity into ruling Vodacom Durban July favourite is that he is a central figure in an outstanding government initiative to raise the life prospects of the country’s grooms.
The unmitigated success of this initiative has the breeders that support it equally thrilled.
In the latter part of 2009 Donald Mabusela and Thami Klassen of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) attended a presentation put on by the Western Cape’s stud farm grooms.
The grooms were the participants in a training program designed to improve their equestrian and life skills.
The program was designed by Adrian Todd, whose actual post at the time in the South African thoroughbred industry was to facilitate movement of workers between countries, but he took it a step further, in unison with the Western Cape Breeders, and started a transformation process.
Mabusela and Klassen were impressed by the presentation and informed Todd of the government initiative of encouraging co-operative enterprises in all of the country’s industries as a means of economic empowerment.
In 2010 Todd formed the thoroughbred industry’s first co-operatives, with the help of leading breeders Klawervlei Stud, Riverton Stud, Highlands Farm Stud and Maine Chance Farms Stud, and he still manages them today, despite his new role as the COO of Cape Thoroughbred Sales.
Ten co-operatives were formed, each with seven members.
In the first year Todd selected a horse or two off the farms of the leading breeders for each of the co-operatives.
Upon application, the government then provided a grant to cover the purchase prices.
The government also provided funding for a mentorship program aimed at improving the breeding and business management skills of the grooms.
Furthermore, the grooms attended a Racing South Africa promotional day at racing headquarters, Newmarket in the UK, as part of an outward selling mission funded by the DTI’s emerging exporters program.
John Koster of Klawervlei Stud recognised the co-operatives as an excellent opportunity to provide upliftment and has been a huge supporter of the initiative from the beginning.
He gave the co-operatives the chance of a great start by inviting them to buy off the farm from a select batch of about twenty well-bred weanlings.
Vercingetorix, who is by the outstanding sire Silvano, was among them and there was also one by an equally good stallion in Captain Al.
Vercingetorix went for R200,000 and no sooner had he been purchased than his siblings, Never Forever and Trinity House, began to excel on the racecourse.
“The timing of the purchase was brilliant,” said Koster.
The co-operative consequently fetched R1,4 million for Vercingetorix at the National Yearling Sales, sold to Champion trainer Mike de Kock’s chief client, Sheik Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al Maktoum.
Koster continued, “I can’t think of any other co-operative in any other industry that could have been so spectacularly successful. It has been a fantastic initiative from the government and provides an amazing opportunity for transformation and empowerment at grass roots level. The co-ops are the best thing that could have happened to the thoroughbred industry and it is all thanks to the government. They have invested at great expense and massive profit has come from it that has improved people’s lives. The DTI are frontrunners in promoting the welfare of our grooms and they should be immensely proud.”
Koster also pointed out that Vercingetorix is likely to end up as a prominent racehorse overseas in countries like Dubai and this will also provide a huge boost to both the co-operative enterprise and to the South African thoroughbred industry as a whole.
The co-operative that sold Vercingetorix is chaired by Abraham Carelse of Riverton Stud and consists of two other grooms from Riverton, as well as two from Klawervlei and one each from Highlands and Maine Chance.
Carelse is in his sixties and one or two of the others in this most successful of co-operatives have also worked in the industry for a long time.
This is a fitting reward for their dedicated service.
There was 100% re-investment in the first three years of the co-operatives, but this year they have been allowed to declare a dividend, and some of them have yielded enough profit to do so.
Carelse’s co-operative were not only able to declare a handsome dividend, but have also bought a share in the exciting stallion prospect Gimmethegreenlight, the first three-year-old to win the Queen’s Plate in over 39 years, and they have also purchased a mare as well as a few more weanlings.
Todd said that the most gratifying aspect of the co-operatives was that all of the members involved work on the farms and the stakes were being returned to them.
The co-operatives have certainly highlighted the value horseracing is able to add to broad-based economic empowerment.
They have also given the grooms an opportunity to become fully fledged exporters, so also has the potential of increasing the country’s exporter base.
Carelse and his members are very excited indeed by Vercingetorix’s current status as July favourite.
They are likely to attend the big racemeeting, which follows close on the heels of the Suncoast KZN Yearling Sale, where they will probably be looking for some more shrewd purchases.
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