Solitaire not the only game

23 March 2015 - 09:08 By Mike Moon
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Mike Moon.
Mike Moon.
Image: SUPPLIED

You must be brave to be a racehorse owner. Steady nerves and sharp responses are required in the battle zone of a thoroughbred marketplace, as you put up your hand and consign a tidy sum to a goofy beast with a sexy walk.

And that's just the opening salvo in a long war - with you in the front line.

Months of waiting in the trenches, as the nag goes into training, requires a different sort of courage. As your pride and joy chomps bag after pricey bag of oats and generates inscrutable invoices, fortitude is called for.

Folk without derring-do and a dream in the heart will say the only qualities needed for this course of action are irresponsibility and foolishness.

They might be right.

Watching one's bank balance tick down by plenty cents every minute as a horse is readied for a far-off payday can be disheartening.

At such moments one might want to contemplate the wisdom of that brave racing soldier, Clement Freud. He wrote about the prospects of winning with one of his less promising ponies: ". a few more races for him to get the hang of it . come down the handicap . run in blinkers . go a bit further . and I could clean up.

"My wife, an innocent woman, asks whether I might not clean up even more comprehensively were I to abandon horse ownership and take up solitaire.

"I change the subject to quality of life. How much of that do you get on a solitaire board?"

The main motivation for owning a horse is to "clean up", or at least turn a profit. Of course, there are attractions in swanning about a parade ring at Kenilworth wearing a shiny badge denoting your elevated status as an owner; or in dropping into posh dinner conversation: "As I said to my trainer today ."

But mostly we aim to win. Big.

This means winning races. But once that's achieved, another level of cleaning up opens up. If your beast is particularly precocious, you'll get offers to purchase from people richer than you who want all the glory for themselves.

It happened this week with South Africa's top racehorse. Days after Queen's Plate-Met hero Futura was elevated to No7 on the list of the world's best racehorses, came news that the colt's trio of owners had found themselves in disagreement over whether to sell him to an overseas buyer.

One of the three amigos wanted the money, the other two wanted to keep living the dream - a Durban July sash maybe; an overseas campaign in their own colours?

The threat of a public auction of Futura to dissolve the partnership forced the two to cough up the third's asking price for his share.

The upshot is that Futura has left trainer Brett Crawford's stable for that of rival Justin Snaith, the reasoning being that Crawford has close ties to the now-much-richer third amigo. The two murmured kind words about Crawford.

Bravery and steadfastness was required by all. An overseas offer for a horse like Futura might be northwards of R15-million.

Solitaire anyone?

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