Paul Rugg, light blue shirt, leads in Down To Business together with connections after the Wylie Hall gelding had won the Listed Lonsdale Stirrup Cup on Saturday (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Paul Rugg returned to his roots on Saturday, flying in from Zimbabwe together with racing partners GM Littleford and SH Murray, to watch his Peter Muscutt-trained Wylie Hall gelding Down To Business run in the Listed Lonsdale Stirrup Cup over 2400m at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
Paul is the son of former Durban City FC captain John Rugg and was born in Durban.
The journey proved well worthwhile for Messrs Rugg, Littleford and Murray because Down To Business produced a powerful finish from midfield to win by 1.05 lengths under Tristan Godden.
It was his first win in five starts since relocating from Zimbabwe to South Africa.
Paul, who is not related to the South African horseracing family with the same surname, recounted the journey with Down To Business thus far.
He said, “Debbie Swanson, who’s our trainer up in Zimbabwe, she went and found him at a Cape Farm sale I think. I actually don’t know, I mean that shows you how good we are. We just have fun! She told us she has this horse for us and we brought him back to Zimbabwe. He had his two and three-year-old career there and was the champion in Zimbabwe last year.”
It has been reported recently that in Zimbabwe owners race mainly for crowing rights, but Paul corrected that and said, “Well, yes, but there is the Ok Grand Challenge, it is the biggest sponsored race, it is an amzing race, and it is for proper money. He won that race and other big races last year and we won proper money. That was the only reason we could come down here, because we had proper money to pay the bills!”
He continued, “Peter Muscutt is a former Zimbabwean and we said let’s go to KZN and give it a bash. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Peter has done an amazing job. He’s got a plan for him. We’ll take him back to Zim after his KZN career is done.”
The races most likely for Down To Business to now target would be the Gr 3 The “Derby” over 2400m at Hollywoodbets Greyville on June 15, the Gr 3 DSTV Gold Vase over 3000m on Hollywoodbets Durban July day and the Gr 3 World Pool Gold Cup over 3200m on the last weekend of the season at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
However, Paul was not sure of the route, and said, “We leave that to the guys who know how, we don’t know much at all, but what we do know is to go in there and have a little drink right now!!”
