Laurence and his two daughters Montana and Teneille lead in Quickstepgal after her Gr 1 Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes win. The other part-owner Harry Willson is on the lead rein on the other side together with trainer Tienie Prinsloo. (Picture: Race Coast)
The 2025/2026 season was a groundbreaker for one of the country’s most popular industryman, Laurence Wernars, who once admitted, “I live to watch and participate in the game. An incomplete day is one without talking, watching and punting horses. ”
The Gr 1s are the races every owner wants to win and Laurence almost doubled his career tally in just one season, a thoroughly deserved achievement.
His previous individual Gr 1 winners were Hero’s Honour, Mighty High, Temple Gratin, Puerto Manzano and Proceed and last season he added Quickstepgal, Tin Pan Alley, Questioning and Erik Dubois.
Between those four they won five Gr 1s in the season.
Laurence races under the name Wernars Family nowadays.
The Wernars Family were the leading Gr 1-winning owners of the 2025/2026 season with their tally of four individual Gr 1 winners being the leading number and their five Gr 1 wins put them on top of the number of Gr 1 wins count too.
They own Erik Du Bois outright and own the other three individual Gr 1 winners of last season in partnership.
Quickstepgal (Vercingetorix) won the WSB Fillies Guineas and the Ridgemont Garden Province Stakes.
Tin Pan Alley (The United States) put in one of the performances of the season when slamming six Gr 1 winners, including Horse Of The Year elect See It Again, by 3,75 lengths in the Gr 1 Wilgerbosdrift HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes over 1600m.
Questioning (Querari) had a magnificent season and followed his narrow defeat in the Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate with four high class victories, including two Gr 2s and the Gr 1 Hollywoodbets Gold Challenge.
Erik Dubois proved himself an exciting prospect when winning the Gr 1 World Pool Moment Of The Day Champion Stakes
Laurence was rewarded for keeping Quickstepgal with small yard trainer Tienie Prinsloo after buying him in training.
He was also rewarded for keeping Erik Dubois with Louis Goosen, who had initially bought the big horse as a pinhook opportunity.
All four of Laurence’s Gr 1 winners were with different trainers with Tin Pan Alley trained by Sean Tarry and Questioning trained by Vaughan Marshall.
The Wernars Family own Quickstepgal in partnership with Laurence’s regular racing partner Harry Willson, they own Tin Pan Alley together with Dayalan Chinsammy and they own Questioning together with Greg and Gina Bortz and Mukund Gujadhur.
The Owners Championship can be a bit skewed because partnerships are counted as separate entities.
The Wernars Family finished sixth on the national log with horses they own by themselves with 37 wins at a strike rate of 12.6% and earnings of R5,457,273.
However, they also featured in the top 20 two more times in partnerships.
It is exciting times for Laurence and his family and the success of this season coincides nicely with their pending take over of Klawervlei Stud.
Laurence is famously publicity shy, but in one of the moments of the season his daughter Montana shared with the public that her Dad had made a pledge early in life that if she were ever on course to witness him winning a Gr 1 then he would speak in the post-race interviews.
Visiting British stalwart presenter Nick Luck was on the mic at that moment and followed the command.
There look sure to be more Wernars’ family moments in the coming seasons as the bug might have bitten his two daughters Montana and Teneille as they were back to lead in Erik Dubois when he won his Gr 1 on World Pool Gold Cup day.
