Owning a racehorse isn't a full-time job, but paying the bills for feeding and shoeing and exercising the brute affords no let-up, said the wit Clement Freud.
One had intended to take a long holiday after a challenging year, abandoning one's ardent readership for the whole of December in the interests of recharging the scribbling batteries for 2015. No such luck. I have hungry horses to feed - not to mention a trainer (certainly a thirsty one) - so another 500 words must be wrestled into these centimetres.
Actually, it's a good thing we're not on the beach yet as we'd miss a chance to talk about Majmu. If chatter about this horse is remotely close to the truth, we're witnessing the emergence of a champion.
The filly is whispered to be "better than Igugu" - an almost heretical invoking of our best female racer of recent years.
Unlike us, Majmu's owner doesn't need to get a close-up, squinty-eyed view of the grindstone in order to keep the beast chomping. Being Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai, he's seriously loaded.
Majmu means "collection" in Arabic and a breeding expert recently commented on the appropriateness of the name, given the filly's glittering assemblage of celebrity ancestors. By Aussie champion sire Redoute's Choice, out of a mare by Hussonet, another top stallion, she has a family tree to excite a pedigree geek.
Far more importantly, though, she can run like blazes.
She's trotted up in four of her five starts. Her 1400m winning time in the Starling Stakes at Turffontein had someone at Sporting Post scrabbling in the record books to show that the 82.90 seconds was faster than a phalanx of top horses had managed in recent years.
Majmu has been shipped from Joburg to Cape Town by master trainer Mike de Kock for tomorrow's Cape Fillies Guineas. De Kock himself is enough to get Cape trainers pooping their pants, given his record of swaggering into town and pocketing all the prize money. His latest bit of weaponry has many of them barking from the mountain.
Only eight other horses have accepted to run against De Kock's two charges in the R1-million Guineas, the most prestigious three-year-old contest in the country, which would normally be oversubscribed.
The rivals that stood their ground would look a handy bunch under normal circumstances, but the presence of a big grey girl somewhat diminishes their prospects.
At odds of 3/10, Majmu isn't going to pay for your hols, but she might finance a couple of cold ones.
The country's top three-year-old colts get their turn in a Kenilworth Guineas in two weeks' time. That contest is a lot more competitive, even though there's a boom horse in the shape of Act Of War.
From my vantage point on the beach, I'll be phoning my bookie to wangle some decent odds on Zambezi River. Horses must eat.