Howard Hamilton

This is the final in the series of articles inspired by the efforts of the South African Racing Authority and the Breeders Association to encourage new participants in the ownership of thoroughbreds.

This week we continue the series on owning a thoroughbred and the ultimate thrill which they provide. Once the bug bites, an owner will find his life transformed while his sporting horizons expand infinitely.

Once he's in the game, an owner has the opportunity to breed his own champions. Every owner dreams of racing a colt that turns into a champion and, after retirement, pays his way fabulously by covering 40 mares or more during each breeding season.

More realistically, an owner will send a well-performed mare or two to a stallion and then race, or sell, the offspring of these matings.

Children growing up

Watching the progress of the foals one has bred is like watching one's own children growing up and making their way in the world. It is as rewarding an enterprise as one can imagine and it can be highly lucrative too.

A beautifully bred youngster might, after all, fetch J$ 1 million or more at the Yearling Sales, or go on to win its owner/breeder a Classic race or two.

All thoroughbreds can be traced, via their paternal lines, to three Arabian stallions imported into Britain from 1679-1724. Being involved in breeding means being involved in an activity of great historical and cultural significance. The noble aim is always this. Improve the breed. It is an evolutionary quest befitting kings.

Breeding puts one in touch with some of nature's greatest mysteries. Even that great breeding theorist, Tesio unlocked few of the doors to the eternal mysteries of equine eugenics. While the principle holds firm that the best performed horses should be mated with each other, nature intervenes and throws up modestly bred animals that can outsprint and outstay the best pedigreed types. It's humbling for breeders to consider the secret forcesof life they are attempting to control.

The eternal challenge facing breeders, who are often owners, is to find more pieces of the puzzle and produce superior animals. Science can take us just so far. There is an enormous role for instinct, "gut feel", in breeding.

Owners may, at some point in their careers, consider taking up the breeding challenge. It isn't quite like playing God, but it comes desperately close.

Philosopher John Wisdom, in his short essay, "What Is There in Horse Racing?" gave us a glimpse into the chain of events that finishes with a frantic blur of speed against a winning post.

"Racing is not merely a matter of getting a horse first past the post,"says Wisdom."That small incident is the last move in a long game which began before the colt was born. Somewhere, someone bred and reared him. Somewhere, someone schooled and trained him through hopes and disappointments."

Wide appeal

"It's an old game, and a game with a wide appeal, The Greeks raced their four-horse teams before the Romans took it up, and, in thousands, `careless of the sun or of the rain, remained in eager attention, their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers ... ' (John Wisdom, 1954)

Nearly 50 years have passed since Wisdom wrote those words. The thrills of racing and breeding are still with us. If anything, they have intensified. Such thrills stretch backwards into the sands of time, and forwards into an uncertain, but eternally captivating future. Racing horses is in our blood. The human heart beats with the same insistent rhythm as does the hooves galloping thoroughbreds.

Nothing in our technologised, mechanised societies can match the ancient splendour and wonder of nature's finest creatures pounding the turf in search of equine immortality.

Being part of that means being part of eternity. Wisdom again: "They say when Time is done we shall transcend all. But here and now one understands a man who wish to go, when he dies, where the racehorses go, where the big bar tilts and the last bellrings, and some must win and some must lose."