Devan Gericke, son of Blue Sky Thoroughbreds’ part-owner Tinus Gericke, leads in 80/1 winner Tara Star together with trainer Darryl Moore. The filly was from the last crop of the stallion Just As Well, “who got a raw deal” in Tinus’ opinion (Picture: Candiese Lenferna)
Summerveld trainer Darryl Moore and connections were provided with a pleasant surprise when Tara Star won on debut at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday at odds of 80/1 and in the aftermath it has been fascinating to hear the views on South African breeding of Tinus Gericke, who owns Blue Sky Thoroughbreds in partnership with Tara Star’s official breeder Bruce le Roux.
The contest on Sunday was expected to lie between an expensive first-timer Gimmethegreenlight filly called Status Quo and One Smart Cookie, who had made a promising debut, but they had both had enough some way out in the soft conditions and finished unplaced as 80/1 shot Tara Star stayed on well to win by 1,60 lengths under Serino Moodley.
The first thing punters often do when an ignored horse wins is refer to their race cards to see what they had missed and they would have been surprised to see the filly was by the former Blue Sky Thoroughbreds-based stallion Just As Well.
Just As Well’s progeny are not often seen in the race card these days and quick research shows he just had a handful in his last crop, including Tara Star and another promising sort, the Gareth van Zyl-trained colt Vibe SA, who has had three starts and has been pipped in his last two.
Tara Star is in fact leased by Blue Sky Thoroughbreds to a syndicate of golfing friends put together by Tinus’s son Devan.
They include Gold Circle’s vice chairperson Gary Grant and director Lance Whiteford, who is the grandson of former top trainer Sonny Whiteford, together with I Hall, GE Larson and “The Gram”.
Darryl said Tara Star had not shown much in her sand work but had put in a good grass gallop.
In fact Tinus revealed she had worked well together with Common Grounds, who had finished second in the first race on the day.
So the signs were all there for a good performance by Tara Star, but Tinus unfortunately constructed his bets for her to finish second to the favourite in the race, a R1.2 million filly by Gimmethegreenlight.
Just As Well was retired by Blue Sky Thoroughbreds due to lack of support and was used as a polo pony stallion, but he unfortunately passed away after being kicked.
Tinus said Just As Well had always had a “raw deal”.
He explained, “His pedigree is very similar to Judpot’s and his stats of winners to runners has always been top. But he had no support. Sadly KZN stallions will always have it tough due to the dwindling mare population. We’ve got less than 370 mares in KZN and only about 1900 in the country. we’re standing Chimichuri Run, a son of Trippi, and he’s throwing some lovely foals. KZN Breeders have just acquired Eden Roc, a son of Var as a freshman sire who will be standing at Clifton stud. we are trying our best but it is going to be tough.”
Tinus went on to reveal his opinion on stallion sentiment, which he said was often largely about “hype”.
He said, “l can give you numerous examples and when the hype is there it can’t be stopped, it’s like a wave and all logic goes out the window and everybody’s behind that stallion. So that is what I do when I breed as well, we look at the pedigrees, we do our matings and we do everything, but in a lot of cases we just follow the money. You’ve got to.”
He pointed out the financial clout numerous Cape breeders had which allowed them to import top class stallions and they then supported each other, which meant the stallions had a solid amount of mares for their crucial first three seasons.
He said, “If you haven’t got the mare population or the breeders supporting it, you are dead.”
He gave an example of hype, saying, “Gimmethegreenlight was struggling in the beginning, but after a purple patch one KZN Champions Season everybody got behind him and he just took off. That is just my overall assumption of it. So I try and buy shares in stallions in the Cape when they release them and John Freeman has been good to involve me in the process. I have just bought a share in Danon Platina, because I think he is going to be champion sire. One tries to predict the future of freshman sires. Danon had a flying start with his juveniles and they will go over ground as three year old’s. So that one I will support because he could be the next champion. Vercingetorix is currently a sales hype, but it is very difficult and expensive to get access to him. He will battle to be Champion Sire … that’s my prediction. We’ll see how accurate I am! He seems to generally throw sprinter-milers, whereas Gimmethegreenlight can throw you a sprinter, with the mare population in SA being sprinter-miler biased, but he can also throw you the classic winners time after time. They made Vercingetorix heir to the throne a couple of years ago when his sire Silvano pipped him on the post, but last year he only finished third behind Gimme and What A Winter. Gimme’s book is being restricted, so I think the next oke is Danon.”
He concluded, “So in KZN it is going to be very tough to have a champion sire considering the mare population. But we will keep trying!”
Tinus is a mining engineer by trade and his late father loved horses, while his Uncle always had racehorses trained by small trainers including the late Oom Nic Claasen and veterinarian Dr Koos Neuland, who started his training career with my Uncle.
He added, “My Uncle had a training track on his smallholding in the Kameeldrift area in Pretoria East, so I used to ride horses every day of my life.”
He grew up loving horses and would fit in a race meeting between his rugby-playing schedule whenever possible.
He owned a few racehorses when nearing retirement and later became interested in breeding and started with one or two mares.
After meeting Bruce le Roux they started Blue Sky Thoroughbreds together. They now own two farms, Bruce’s original Spring Valley Stud and the stud farm which was originally Golden Acres Stud and was later Yellow Star Stud.
Tinus now lives in Durban, a shortish drive away from his stud farms and he said, “Breeding is my hobby and I don’t plan to make money from it, but I don’t want to lose money either, and we just want to go to the farm to enjoy being with the horses. I love those animals and Mooi River is beautiful, such nice countryside.”
