Champions Season Smorgasbord of Equine Athletes

Grafton Street winning at Kenilworth Racecourse on 16 January 2010.
Equine Edge/Gold Circle

This year’s Champions Season which takes place in KwaZulu-Natal, will see a smorgasbord of top class equine athletes converging on Durban and among them will be the odd underdog from a smaller yard, none more so than the Mike Stewart-trained Grafton Street, whose path towards the Vodacom Durban July is already a story of fairytale proportions.



The now eight-year-old gelding by Jallad was trained by Glen Kotzen in his early years.



“He was very talented,” reflected Kotzen.



He won the Grade 2 Premier’s Trophy as a four-year-old in late 2005 but went wrong just before the J&B Met with a tendon injury. He was sent away to the farm for a year to recover and then slowly brought back into training.



His comeback race was a 1400m event at Greyville in January 2008.



However he pulled the tendon again and on this occasion jockey Bernard Fayd’herbe was of the opinion that he would “never race again.”



His doting owner MA Filmer, known to her friends as “Ma”, consequently sent her to a hack yard in Durban.



However, about a year later she phoned Mike Stewart and told him that Grafton Street was looking so miserable would he mind taking him on as a hack at his yard which is situated on the fresh and beautiful Noordhoek Beach in Cape Town. Stewart agreed.



Mike was very taken with Grafton Street’s athletic looks upon his arrival.



“I took a good look at his tendon and it had healed up nicely,” he recalled. “Later, I phoned Ma and said to her ‘he looks like a racehorse. I will make a deal with you, we will give it a try training him for three months at half-fees and we’ll see how it goes.’ She made me promise we wouldn’t hurt him and I assured her of our priorities.”



Grafton Street made his comeback in September 2009 in a 1600m race at Kenilworth and ran just 7,75 lengths back to the talented Mike Bass-trained Road To Reason.



He then ran 5,5 lengths back to last year’s Canon Gold Cup runner up, Noblewood, over 2400.



“His next race was in heavy going and I asked Richard Fourie to just run on gently and not be hard on him,” he remembered. “He ran a close fourth to Judged Excellent and then hit top form in his next start.”



Grafton Street completed a remarkable comeback by winning a MR 94 Handicap over 2000m at Kenilworth on December 19 last year, beating Judged Excellent by 1,5 lengths.



Since then he has won twice more including last Saturday at Kenilworth when carrying 59,5kg to a fluent victory under Felix Coetzee.



“He is a top, top horse,” enthused Stewart on Sunday. “He will be a runner in the July. He will go in with a light weight and the short run in will suit him perfectly. He has speed and he can kick. He is eight rising nine so it is important that we aim him at just one race. That race is the July. We were originally going to aim him at the Met but I knew he wouldn’t qualify.”



Grafton Street is currently rated 101 and Stewart did not seem concerned that he would make it into the July field.



“We will win another race with him, don’t you worry,” he said confidently.



He felt his qualifying race would come via an ‘A’ Division Handicap.



Stewart is modest regarding his part in Grafton Street’s comeback and said, “It is not me, it is the sea that has done it, but it’s a real fairytale story.”



Grafton Street trains on the beach in the morning and walks to Kommetjie every afternoon, which is about a 13km round trip.



“A light work rider rides him bareback and he walks through the water the whole way,” said Stewart.



There will be many hoping that Grafton Street lines up at the start of Africa’s Greatest Horseracing Event on July 31. It will be an especially exciting day for Ma Filmer.



“She is so passionate about her horses,” said Stewart. “She phones me everyday at 7 a.m. and asks me how Grafton Street’s legs are and tells me not to forget his carrots.”



Another Mike Stewart-trained horse, Hospitality, is also fast becoming a purist’s favourite and should have a strong following during Champion’s Season.



He underlined his Grade 1 Canon Gold Cup credentials at Durbanville last week when carrying 60kg to win a handicap over 2400m under a tremendous ride by Bernard Fayd’herbe.



Hospitality is an out and out stayer by Badger’s Drift and his supporters must have been concerned, knowing his lack of extra gears, when first Arboreal moved around him into the lead down the back straight and then Jagermeister moved past him too.



Fayd’herbe switched him off the rail to cover the move and rode him with all his might down the straight.



The brave horse gave it his all and just got up on the line to beat Jagermeister, to whom he gave 8kg.



Hospitality is not a flashy type and doesn’t have the best of actions, but is an easy horse to admire especially by those who love front-runners that can gallop a field off their feet.



Stewart said after his previous race when winning the Grade 3 Chairman’s Cup over 3200m from pillar to post, “He has no pace whatsoever. He has to be ridden at a strong pace from the front. I think he should one day be considered for a career over the jumps in Britain. He is an out and out stayer and could make a good Grand National horse.”



Hospitality was bought for Stewart by the late Laurie and Jean Jaffee.



Stewart met the Jaffees’ through his mother who lived next door to their beach cottage at St. James.



“I took him some crayfish one day and he said ‘I must send you a horse’. He duly sent me a horse every year, but for the first six years none of them were any good.”



Stewart recalled that giving bad news to Jaffee was almost becoming a habit. However he was then sent a filly that won one or two races.



After that Jaffee advised him to have a look at a horse he had bred, Hospitality, that was going to the Sales.



“I loved him,” he said. “I set a target at R80,000 and bid up to R90,000. When he reached R100,000 I thought I’d lost him but then found out I was bidding against Mr. Jaffee, who sent him to me anyway!”



“I’m sure he’ll be looking down now and smiling, knowing he had finally got me a good one,” remarked Stewart.



The Jaffees’ daughter, Georgina, gave it away in her post-race interview last week that Hospitality is something of a favourite.



Stewart said that his next race would be a staying event in Port Elizabeth in May and he would then go straight from there to the Gold Cup over 3200m at Greyville, which has been moved forward this year to June 26.



The Gold Vase over 3000m on Vodacom Durban July day, July 31, would also be an ideal race for him


Gold Circle

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