Putting Variety into this sporting life

South Africa's golfers are at much longer odds than usual to claim the auld claret jug at Hoylake this weekend.

Coming on top of the conspicuous absence of Bafana Bafana from the fun in Brazil, us yet again not having serious contenders at Wimbledon, and so on, it is easy to start imagining a decline in the fortunes of the great sporting nation.

Okay, the Springboks did a decent pronk last time out, and the Proteas can bloom in a sunny spot (like yesterday morning), but in the gloom of winter it's easy for us, the great spectator nation, to let heads drop, so to speak.

But cheer up: we're still tops in horseracing. Well, near the top anyway, and boxing well above our weight. It's true, sport is a game of two halves.

The latest Longines World's Best Racehorse Rankings has the South African-bred Variety Club at joint No2.

Consider that there are tens of thousands of thoroughbreds in the world, most of them coming from far bigger racing and horse-breeding nations than ours, and you get a sense of what a deal this is.

The top horse in the world, with a rating of 130, is Japan's Just A Way, whose wondrous six-length victory in the Dubai Duty Free had pundits' jaws dropping like a SAA jumbo en route to Hong Kong.

Joint second with Variety Club on 126 is the British colt Kingman, thanks to five wins in six starts and a recent triumph at Royal Ascot.

Variety Club was bred at the small Beaumont Stud of Anton and Dominique Shepherd at Du Toit's Kloof, near Paarl. After performing peerlessly over 1600m at home and getting two Equus Horse of the Year awards, Variety Club shipped up north and became the latest South African to humble the world's best - in the Godolphin Mile in Dubai and the Champions' Mile in Hong Kong.

His 2013 Queen's Plate victory qualified him to run at the US's premier race meeting, the Breeders' Cup. Fortunately, he is the property of Ingrid and Markus Jooste, the country's most prolific owners, who had the considerable resources needed to get their horse overseas in the face of a lengthy and expensive export procedure.

With his two victories this year, the son of Var has done more than just qualify for the American showpiece, he's kicked open the door and is headed for California's Santa Anita at the end of October.

His preparatory race is on October 5 in the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp, France. And his final race is scheduled to be the Hong Kong Mile in December.

After that he's off to stud - possibly back home, passing on those athletic genes, but maybe in the northern hemisphere, where the mares are not necessarily prettier than the local girls but happen to have owners with much fatter wallets.

Wherever it is, I'd say he's earned the good life - strolling in a paddock and servicing top-quality girls.