Lucinda Woodruff at the sales with her well qualified assistant trainer, her five-times SA champion trainer father, Geoff Woodruff. (Picture: Cape Racing Sales).
Geoff Woodruff was champion trainer five times and his daughter Lucinda was his assistant in the latter part of his South African career and the roles are now reversed as he is now her assistant trainer at Milnerton.
“The Guv’nor” returned from his stint in Saudi Arabia in March this year and took out his assistant license in order to join in Lucinda’s operation.
He said, “I had been away in Mauritius for nearly a year and in Saudi Arabia for one and a half years. Lucinda was getting bigger and looking for a bit of help, so I thought it was time to go home.”
His return has coincided with Cape Racing being in a better space than ever and he is loving being back.
He said, “We are pretty much the same team as we always were (Lucinda, Geoff and Carol), but the license is just in different hands now.”
Carol is Geoff’s wife and Lucinda’s mother and she is the daughter of the late iconic six-times July-winning trainer Terrance Millard, so Lucinda certainly has a fine training pedigree!
The yard is not high on the national table with five wins this season at a strike rate of 6.67%.
However, they are burgeoning in both numbers and quality and the results should start to be seen by the end of this season.
Geoff said, “We have a very young string. We have bought a lot of young horses and the numbers are up around 60 now and we’ll push it to maybe 80 and then take it from there. We have some nice pedigrees and super looking young horses. Lucinda is getting a lot of good support from big people, so that’s great. She is good at her job and she’s got a lovely personality and I think the owners are very happy.”
Asked if there were any to follow, he replied, “They are all untried youngsters who have only been in the yard for a couple of months, so not yet but in due course. There are some very well bred ones, Gimmethegreenlights, Vercingetorix’s, One Worlds, so some top stallions and good pedigrees. Whether they can run or not, time will only tell. We have some three-year-olds who look okay, but none putting their hand up as outstanding, so the two-year-olds are where our hopes lie. So it’s a little stable looking to try and make its mark next season.”
The yard made the news at Cape Racing’s Breeze Up and Two-year-old Unbroken Sale a couple of months ago when purchasing the top lot. Woodruff Racing went to R1,3 million for the Maine Chance Farms’ lot 111, appropriately named Vindicated. Bred on the proven Silvano/Captain Al cross, she is a three-part sister to two winners and is out of the super-fast Captain Al sired Listed Laisserfaire Stakes winner Victoria Lavelle, who hails from the family of Vercingetorix’s Listed-winnning daughter Ancient Epic.
The Woodruffs are a yard to keep an eye on.
