Ian Longmore’s Care And Patience Pays Dividends

Capetonian Ian Longmore is a big owner who was often in the headlines in the early part of last decade as the three times Gr 1-winner Jackson (Dynasty) ran in his colours and he was a part-owner of the four times Gr 1 winner Futura.

He has Gr 1-winning potential for the first time in a while with his homebred Canford Cliffs gelding Tenango, who carried his colours to an effortless victory in the Gr 2 Golden Horse Sprint over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Saturday.

Ian insists on taking no credit as the breeder.

However, he should take a bow for enabling Tenango to have every chance of fulfilling his potential.

In saying that nobody yet knows the limit of this Candice Bass-Robinson-trained horse’s ability, such was the ease of his victory on Saturday, which allowed Andrew Fortune to point to the crowd and lick his lips in typical showboating style.

Tenango had been hampered by a breathing issue early in his career and reaching the point he is at now required extreme patience and the wherewithall to get the best treatment and the best environment in which to recuperate.

The thoroughbred, it is often lamented, suffers one serious design flaw.

The right laryngeal nerve has a simple route, branching off from the vagus nerve, which comes from the brain, and travelling directly to the larynx.

However, the left laryngeal nerve instead must travel all the way to the heart, where it wraps around a large pulsing artery, before coming all the way back to the larynx. It is the longest nerve in the horse’s body and so it stands to reason that it is commonly damaged.

The most common cause of any abnormal respiratory sound is idiopathic left laryngeal hemiplegia (paralysis of the left side of the larynx).

This condition is caused by degeneration of the nerve that supplies the left side muscles of the larynx.

The left side of the larynx consequently “hangs” inward, instead of moving in and out in symmetry with the right side.

Anecdotal evidence from an experienced trainer a few year ago suggested that wind ops on this problem only had about a 50/50 success rate.

One of the problems was when a horse stood up after surgery they could injure themselves or any implants in the operated area could become dislodged.

Tenango was a victim of this breathing disorder and Ian decided to send him to Syrilla Stud for the wind operation and for recuperation.

Tiaan Ellis, stud manager of Syrilla Stud, said, “It was suggested by Dr. Andrew Gray he had to come to the farm for a while before the op so he can just relax and settle down. As Candice Bass-Robinson has mentioned in interviews he was quite a nervy horse and he wasn’t a happy horse, so he came to the farm and we settled him down beautifully. The difference in the wind op procedure was basically that they did it with the horse standing up. I think there was an implant  to hold the tie back in place. Then after that he had another almost six months recovery on the farm. We do things a bit differently and give a lot of attention to the horses. We had to hand walk him around the block, because he wasn’t allowed outside to get any dust. So we even hand walked him at night sometimes just to allow him time out of his stable. He also had nasal flushes and was given other attention. He recovered absolutely like a bomb. He changed completely as well from a nervous horse to a happy horse  and a very easy horse to work with. It is such a relaxed, no rush environment and he calmed down completely.”

The professionalism employed and the patience displayed has paid handsome dividends as Tenango’s record since the op is seven starts for five wins and two seconds.

Candice Bass-Robinson spoke about his change in demeanour in the winner’s interview on Saturday and said, “He hasn’t been to Hollywoodbets Scottsville, but he is just a consummate professional, he has just got such a wonderful temperament and takes everything in his stride.”

Mark Bass is also a part-owner of Tenango and explained how that came about, “I’m fortunate enough to call Ian a very good friend of mine, we’ve been together at Bass Racing for about 23 years now, and we played a round of golf a few weeks ago and he said, ‘Why don’t you join me for the ride (with Tenango)?’ and I said, ‘I couln’t be more honoured’, so thank you to Ian and Debbie.”

The bay has an exceptional turn of foot and Ian said,” Andrew Fortune, he is quite character, he told us, ‘The horse was saying to me, can we go yet, can we go yet?!’”

Ian said about the breeding of Tenago, “I can’t take any credit for it, even though I bred her. In this game you need luck, and on top of that you need more luck, and this was just a helluva lot of luck. I was given the mare by Roland Bouwer from Syrilla Stud. Every now and then the guys clean up some of their mares and he asked me if I wanted her. I said yes, absolutely, and the rest is history I guess.”

Tenango is out of Tripadvisor, a Trippi mare whose only win was over 1150m at Turffontein Inside. She had only produced one foal when Ian acquired her.

Ian said, “Trippi mares do well and I fancied something about the breeding. Charles Faull also told me once ‘You’ve got to breed back to the female lines’. I don’t know much about breeding, but I thought she looked like a good match to the stallions who were options.”

The next bit of luck happened in the choice of stallion.

Ian said, “I’m big pals with Craig Carey and Ross Kieswetter and they said the mare could go there. The stallion options at the time were Canford Cliffs or Potala Palace (both of whom stand at Ridgemont). So when covering time arrived I flipped a coin and Canford Cliffs won it! So that is what I am saying, there is nothing smart about me with breeding. I would like to think I’m clever, but I’m not.”

Tenango was born and raised at Beaumont Stud.

The mare has unfortunately passed away of colic. She is the only mare Ian owned and the first foal she produced with Ian as the official breeder was the smart Brett Crawford-trained Master Of My Fate gelding Raven Black. He also runs in Ian’s colours and was second on debut, then unplaced, and then won four in a row. His last start was in December last year, a win over 1000m, and that followed a layoff of more than a year. His previous three wins had followed a layoff of eight months.

Ian said, “He can also run like crazy, but has got some issues. That’s the game I guess.”

Tripadvisor would not be the first mare to have pogeny who produce after an untimely passing.

As it turned out Saturday was the greatest day of Canford Cliffs’ career as the unbeaten Alan Greeff-trained Ridgemont homebred Direct Hit, part-owned by Devin Heffer, gave the Irish-bred Tagula stallion his 1st Gr 1 winner and it was followed just under  two hours later by a R1 million Gr 2 win, a race which only lost its Gr 1 status this year.