Turf Talk Newsletter – 20 August, 2025

Kommetdieding’s fine conformation and action is shown in this picture taken of him at the Hollywoodbets Durban July gallops (Picture: Candiese Lenferna)

“He has what it takes.” That’s the opinion of respected stallion syndicate manager John Freeman on Kommetdieding.

John Freeman admits he is not one to syndicate just any stallion.

John clearly gave Kommetdieding, who will be paraded at Klawervlei Stud’s stallion day on Thursday 28 August, his stamp of approval when he syndicated the horse at the end of his racing career.

“From humble beginnings, he did it the hard way and showed so much brilliance. Also, he was as sound as a bell throughout his career.”

The young Klawervlei stallion, whose first foals are newly-turned yearlings, will stand his third season at stud this year and with his racetrack efforts in danger of becoming a faded memory, now is the perfect time to remind everyone what a good racehorse he was.

By Fort Wood’s champion son Elusive Fort, Kommetdieding’s biography reads like a rags to riches story.

Purchased off the Klawervlei Farm Sale for a paltry R55 000 by novice owner Ashley Reynolds, Kommetdieding entered the small yard of Harold Crawford and Michelle Rix and took them on a heady ride over the next four seasons.

He also had the distinction of being one of just seven gallopers to have completed the coveted Durban July/ Met double, a feat achieved only by himself, Hussein, Yataghan, Politician, London News, Pocket Power and Igugu. That’s exalted company to be in.

In the 2021 Vodacom Durban July, Kommetdieding raced wide throughout but came with a withering run in the straight to draw alongside old nemesis Linebacker a furlong from home. Favourite Got The Greenlight also joined in the fray and in a pulsating dash for the line, it was Kommetdieding who stayed on best to record a first top level victory.

It was sweet revenge for the colt, as he had finished third to Linebacker in both the Gr2 KZN Guineas and Gr1 Daily News 2000.

Undefeated at two, the colt had arrived in Durban with an unbeaten four-win streak in tow, capped by a facile victory in the Gr3 Politician Stakes.

Ironically, he was favourite for the Gr1 Cape Derby but injury forced his withdrawal from the classic which was won by Linebacker. Together with Jet Dark, Linebacker and Triple Crown winner Malmoos, Kommetdieding was short-listed for the Equus Champion 3yo of the 2021-22 season, with the honours ultimately going to Jet Dark.

The 2022 Met saw Kommetdieding challenged by old adversary Linebacker close to home, but defeat was never an option and the four-year-old stretched away to take the honours from a fast-finishing Jet Dark, who had beaten him in the Gr1 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate.

That proved to be the final start for both protagonists and Kommetdieding returned to birthplace Klawervlei for stud duties.

A handsome horse who invariably caught the eye in the paddock, he is out of the Captain Al mare Adorable, a three-part sister in blood to triple Gr1 winner Captain America, and hails from a strong sire-producing female line which traces to Queen Of Light, a close relation to successful sires Alycidon and Acropolis. Four of Queen Of Light’s daughters established sire-producing families, one of which was Kommedieding’s fifth dam Crystal Light.

Read his Raceform pedigree page by clicking here.

In his first season, ‘Kommet’ covered in excess of 70 mares. His service fee for 2025 has been pitched at R12 000.

Klawervlei will have its annual stallion day at 11h00 on Thursday, 28 August. Those interested in sending Kommetdieding a mare are welcome to come up for the day and view him at the stallion barn.

Sporting Post

• Anybody interested in attending the Stallion Day on Thursday 28 August should call Tracey at Klawervlei on 066 185 7197 or John Freeman on 082 777 8117.

The Cape Racing Season’s Horse Of The Year was WSB Met winner Eight On Eighteen (Picture: Wayne Marks)

From record-breaking victories to emerging stars, the Cape season delivered champions across every division.

Cape Town – 19 August 2025: The racing season runs from 1 August to 31 July, a full 12 months of competition culminating in the announcement of the region’s champions. Within that calendar, the Cape Summer Festival of Racing – staged from November to March – remains the showpiece stretch, drawing the biggest crowds, producing the richest purses, and delivering many of the season’s defining moments.

The 2024/25 campaign was no exception, with champions emerging across all divisions and history being rewritten in the process. Leading the roll of honour was Eight on Eighteen, whose achievements, along with those of trainer Justin Snaith, jockey Richard Fourie, and Owners of the Year Nick Jonsson and Johann Rupert, defined a season to remember.

Two three-year-old colts dominated the feature races – Vaughan Marshall’s One Stripe and Snaith’s Eight on Eighteen – each winning two Grade 1s. One Stripe captured the Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas and L’Ormarins King’s Plate (both over 1600 m) before heading overseas to continue his career. Eight on Eighteen finished second to One Stripe in the HWB Cape Guineas but proved unstoppable over more ground, taking both the World Sports Betting Cape Town Met and the SplashOut Cape Derby over 2000 m.

That WSB CPT Met victory marked a milestone: Eight on Eighteen became the first horse in 79 years to complete the WSB CPT Met–Cape Derby double in the same season. It was also Snaith Racing’s third consecutive Met and a remarkable hat-trick for owners Nick Jonsson, following Jet Dark (2023) and Double Superlative (2024). On Met day alone, Snaith sent out six winners – just shy of his record eight on the corresponding day in 2016.

The season was also a personal triumph for Richard Fourie, crowned Western Cape Jockey of the Year for an unprecedented eighth consecutive time – a remarkable run of dominance in the saddle. Snaith’s 135 Western Cape winners left him 54 clear of his nearest rival, Candice Bass-Robinson, along with a R13 million stakes advantage.

Beyond the headline acts, other stars shone brightly. Gimme A Prince dazzled in the HKJC World Pool Cape Flying Championship and the Khaya Stables Diadem Stakes, earning a merit rating of 134 – the highest in South Africa. Multiple graded and listed successes also went to Asiye Phambile, Rainbow Lorikeet, and Holding Thumbs.

From Black Cheetah’s juvenile debut win in November to Saint Brigid’s season-closing victory in July, the year delivered stories of resilience, skill, and racing excellence – capped by the first race meeting under the new Race Coast Turf Club banner on 1 June.

2024/25 Cape Racing Season Award Winners:

Juvenile Male: Good For You

Juvenile Female: Ukuduma

Three-Year-Old Male: Eight On Eighteen

Three-Year-Old Female: Mon Petit Cherie

Older Male: Gimme A Prince

Older Female: Double Grand Slam

Champion Sprinter: Gimme A Prince

Champion Miler: One Stripe

Champion Middle Distance: Eight On Eighteen

Champion Stayer: Holding Thumbs

Champion Work Rider: Louis Burke

Champion Jockey: Richard Fourie

Champion Trainer: Justin Snaith

Owners of the Year: N Jonsson & J P Rupert

Horse of the Year: Eight On Eighteen

The winners across all categories will be honoured at Hollywoodbets Durbanville on Wednesday, 27 August. Each race on the day will be named after an award recipient, with presentations taking place after every race and broadcast live on air. Racegoers are invited to join the celebration and share in recognising the season’s champions.

The photograph above of Andrew Fortune saluting the crowd after winning the Gr 1 Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes on the Justin Snaith-trained Double Grand Slam (Vercingetorix) won Candiese Lenferna the Equus Media Award for Still Photography. It was the third time Candiese had won the award.

Emma Finney’s submission on wonder horse Charles Dickens won her the Equus Media award for Broadcasting. Emma hails from the state of Michigan in the USA. Click here to view her winning submission.

Gary Lemke won the Equus Media Award for Print for the high quality magazine, jampacked with facts, articles and photographs, he edited on Richard Fourie’s record-breaking 378-wins season. It was the second time Gary had won the award. Click here to watch Gary Lemke in a recent interview in the weekly Race Coast program In The Box Seat in which he talks about the aforementioned publication.

National Colour, running in the colours of Chris van Niekerk, is caught late by Borderlescott in the 2008 Gr 1 Nunthorpe Stakes 

The Gr 1 Nunthorpe Stakes will be run on Friday over a flat five furlongs at York, a course and distance that would have been ideal for the lightning quick Sean Tarry-trained filly National Colour back in 2008, but, alas, heavy rain flooded the course that year and the race had to be diverted to the Newmarket July course, which has a tough uphill climb to the finish in the closing stages.

A South African-bred horse has never won a Gr 1 in Europe before and National Colour might have been the one who has had the best credentials to do so, but fortune did not favour the Advocate Altus Joubert-bred grey daughter of National Assembly.

National Colour ultimately finished second in the Nunthorpe, caught late by the outsider Borderlescott, leaving knowledgeable fans wondering what might have been had the race been staged at its traditional venue of York.

Some also wondered whether she was quite as a good as a six-year-old, following knee surgery and a year long layoff, as she had been as a younger horse in which she had tremendous gatespeed and would blitz through five or six furlongs in devastating style, never showing any sign of stopping.

More bad luck was to follow for National Colour, who had won three Gr 1s in succession in South Africa as a three-year-old before departing for overseas, in her career swansong in the Gr 1 Prix de l’Abbaye over an ideal flat five furlongs at Longchamp. The race turned into a farce due to a false start call which some jockeys heard and others didn’t.

Nevertheless, National Colour’s second in the 2008 Nunthorpe would become an important result for South African breeding because National Colour became an influential broodmare whose Ridgemont-based Australian-bred son Rafeef is today one of the top sires in the country.

At the same 2008 Newmarket Tote Ebor meeting Duke Of Marmalade won the Gr 1 Juddmonte International and stamped himself as the best horse in the world as it was his fifth European Gr 1 victory in succession in that famous season, the first on April 27 and the last on August 23, although he subsequently finished unplaced in both the Arc and the Breeders Cup Classic.

Duke Of Marmalade of course went on to stand at Drakenstein Stud, where he had plenty of success.

The below article was written a couple of days after National Colour’s gallant effort in the Nunthorpe under Kevin Shea:

Sean Tarry said after National Colour’s fine second in the Group I Nunthorpe Stakes over five furlongs (1000m) run at the Newmarket July course on Friday that he and jockey Kevin Shea had been quite confident beforehand when they saw the fast conditions and the tailwind.

The flying grey five-year-old mare was known for her excellent gate speed and blistering early pace in her days in South Africa where she won three Grade 1 races.

In Friday’s race the course record was broken by over a second and the first seven horses home finished inside the previous record time.

The winner was the 12-1 shot Borderlescott, a six-year-old gelding by Compton Place.

National Colour, who is by the very successful South African stallion National Assembly, came within 0,5 lengths of becoming the first South African-bred horse to win a Group I race in Europe.

In the stands Tarry et al thought that she would do it when she was clear with a furlong to go. However Borderlescott ran on very strongly and caught her coming up the steep climb towards the finish, giving both trainer Robin Bastiman and jockey Pat Cosgrave the first Grade I wins of their respective careers.

Kevin Shea quipped afterwards that it was the fastest he had ever been in his life.

National Colour was affectionately known in South Africa as the “flying grey filly”, a name she probably inherited from the original “flying filly”, a famous British-bred called Mumtaz Mahal, who appears seven times in her pedigree and whom she resembles quite closely.

Ironically Mumtaz Mahal won the Nunthorpe in 1924.

National Colour had knee surgery after a race in Dubai in March last year and this was her second run after a rest of over a year.

Tarry said yesterday, “She ran a great race and we have no excuses. We are a bit disappointed that she beat all the fancied horses but was caught by an outsider. The hill at Newmarket did find her out. We had planned the race for the flat track at York and had the race taken place there it might have been a different story. But it was a good field and she has now proven herself at the highest level so hopefully we can move forward from here. We will now go for the Prix de l’Abbaye at Longchamp on Arc day. That is a flat course but obviously the going on the day might not be as fast. She is a filly who has her issues but she’s come out of the race as well as we could have expected.”

The Nunthorpe is traditionally run at York but after heavy rain virtually flooded the course during the week the Group 1 and Group 2 races were rescheduled to other racecourses around the country.

One of the premier events of the York meeting, the Group I Juddmonte International Stakes over one mile and two furlongs (2000m), was run yesterday on the Newmarket July course and saw the Aiden O’Brien-trained Duke Of Marmalade, a four-year-old colt by Danehill, stamp himself as the best turf racehorse in the world. It was his fifth Group I victory in succession and he easily repelled the challenge of 12-1 shot Phoenix Tower with Epsom Derby winner, New Approach, in third.

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Picture: The great racehorse and influential stallion Lexington’s true worth to the thoroughbred breed became apparent through the effect the 1913 Jersey Act had on British thoroughbred development

The Jersey Act, introduced by Weatherby’s of Britain, stated that no horse or mare could be considered eligible for admission to the stud book unless traced without flaw on both sire’s and dam’s side of its pedigree to horses and mares themselves already accepted in the earlier volumes of this book.

It was in response to the panic selling of American bloodstock in the early 1900s due to a number of U.S. states banning gambling, which depressed Thoroughbred racing—and thus breeding—in the United States.

The gambling ban had led to an influx of American racehorses of dubious origin into Britain, because the loss of breeding records during the American Civil War coupled with the late beginning of the registration of American Thoroughbreds led many in the British racing establishment to doubt that the American-bred horses were purebred.

The act had disastrous long-term consequences for British bloodstock.

The Jersey Act came into effect in 1913 and, whilst intended as a cleansing measure, it stunted progress by denying thoroughbred status to some of the world’s fastest horses, including the descendants of Lexington, a great racehorse and champion sire in the USA 16 times but of doubtful origin on his dam’s side.

Most American-breds traced to Lexington at least once as he had saturated the breed.

By the 1920’s and 1930’s it became noticeable that the British-breds that were successful in international competition invariably had Lexington genes in their pedigrees despite the fact that the only legitimate source was via descendants who had been imported to Britain before 1913.

This should have sounded a warning to breeders and Weatherbys but they kept their heads in the sand and the Act was eventually only repealed in 1949 after the French had dominated British stakes races during the 1940’s.

It is no coincidence that one of the most influential lines of British origin that exists in thoroughbred breeding today traces back to Lexington and this is because a Lexington line stallion called Americus had arrived in Britain before 1913.

Americus was sire of a mare called Americus Girl, who was in turn dam of Lady Josepine, who was dam of the legendary Mumtaz Mahal.

Mumtaz Mahal will be found multiple times in all modern thoroughbred pedigrees.

Click here to read the details of the Jersey Act

Lexington has been the subject of a fascinating book recently and the author of the book gave an interesting talk on him recently.

Click here to listen to the talk about Lexington

Mini Hauk has been tipped to win the Gr 1 Yorkshire Oaks (Picture: Brian Lawless/PA) 

York Thursday Formguides And Selections

At The Races

11:50 PM – Sky Bet Lowther Stakes (Fillies’ Group 2)
America Queen caught they eye with a 12-length win on her sole start, but the form is open to question with none of those in behind winning since. Dandana and Timeforshowcasing have done nothing wrong with two wins each but they both like to front run and that may set things up for ROYAL FIXATION. Only beaten a neck and clear of the third in the Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes at Newmarket, a repeat of that may be good enough.

Top Tip: Royal Fixation (7)
Watch out for: America Queen (1)

22:25 PM – Harry’s Half Million By Goffs (GBB Race)
Richard Hannon has won five of the last 10 renewals and with Sean Levey booked for Raakeb, the Newbury sixth may be his first string. Clive Cox has won the last two making Newbury second Song of The Clyde one to take seriously, but he needs to step up on that and RIKKI TIKI TAVI is the one. He ran on well to get off the mark over shorter at Thirsk and has always looked the sort to get better with more experience.

Top Tip: Rikki Tiki Tavi (15)
Watch out for: Raakeb (13)

33:00 PM – Clipper Handicap (Heritage Handicap)
Bullet Point seems sure to prove popular here after being headed close home to finish second in a similar race at Ascot last month, but he has to give 4lb to the younger REMMOOZ which looks a big ask. Owen Burrows’ colt has won three of his four starts and looks Group class in the making, with a neck success over C&D already on the CV. Upped 4lb for that, he may have further improvement to come. Leadman appears the best of the David O’Meara five.

Top Tip: Remmooz (7)
Watch out for: Bullet Point (2)

43:35 PM – Pertemps Network Yorkshire Oaks (Fillies’ And Mares’ Group 1)
Substance over aesthetics has been the order with MINNIE HAUK, whose progression has been efficient and professional. The daughter of Frankel started her three-year-old campaign with a cosy success in the Cheshire Oaks before establishing herself as the leading middle-distance filly of her generation with Classic wins at Epsom and the Curragh. With Aidan O’Brien bearing down on a record-equaling ninth success in this race, the mount of Ryan Moore is the ready pick of the Ballydoyle pair, although the Ribblesdale winner Garden Of Eden is a high-class second string. The progressive Estrange and Qilin Queen are here on merit and also command respect.

Top Tip: Minnie Hauk (3)
Watch out for: Garden Of Eden (2)

54:10 PM – British EBF & Sir Henry Cecil Galtres Stakes (Fillies’ And Mares’ Listed) (GBBPlus Race)
RAINBOWS EDGE and Aeolian, who both run in the King’s colours, could be the pair to focus on. Both represent yards with good records in this race and while the latter has tons of scope for improvement now she steps up in trip, the former is the more experienced at this level and shades preference after being narrowly denied when second in the Lyric Stakes here last month. Charlotte’s Web was a close third in that race and could be thereabouts again.

Top Tip: Rainbows Edge (3)
Watch out for: Aeolian (5)

64:45 PM – Mews Hotel Ossett EBF Stallions Nursery
COMMAND THE STARS hasn’t looked back since his fifth on debut at Haydock, winning twice, and he now makes his nursery bow. George Scott’s juvenile is likely to have plenty more to offer and can go close. Special Dividend is unbeaten in two starts, most recently scoring in good fashion at Southwell, and as long as the son of Ardad transfers that form to turf, he should have a say. Just A Girl and Peel Park are others to keep an eye on.

Top Tip: Command The Stars (1)
Watch out for: Special Dividend (7)

75:20 PM – British EBF Fillies’ Handicap (Heritage Handicap)
Maybe Not made it two wins from three starts in handicaps at Kempton eight days ago and she is likely to be on the premises once again, despite a 6lb penalty. Bonus Time is a progressive filly who struck over 6f at Naas at the start of the month and, with the Paddy Twomey yard in brilliant form, the daughter of Too Darn Hot has to be respected. However, DASH OF AZURE possibly did too much too soon when fading into seventh at Goodwood last time and finished a fair fifth in the Sandringham prior. With Ryan Moore booked to ride, she looks the one to side with.

Top Tip: Dash Of Azure (9)
Watch out for: Maybe Not (14)

Which great trainer said once during a downturn in fortunes, “If you have six runners and they all come last, you can’t wear purple check trousers and pink shoes, can you? You’ll just look like a clown.”

The picture is of the subject