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‘Hey Boet, get yourself an Announce!’

Published by charl on December 7, 2009

IT feels like Graystone Stud’s stallion Announce has been around forever, because his progeny seems pop up at almost every race meeting these days, but he’s only 12 years old.

”If he is given more support from breeders, the kind of mares going to the boom stallions, his best years lie ahead of him,” says Graystone’s proprietor St John Gray who has trained 90% of Announce’s offspring, horses bred mostly from his own broodmare band.

Considering that Gray has plugged away literally on his own, Announce’s results are quite remarkable. At this writing he occupies a Top 10 position on the Sires’ Stakes Log with almost R1,8 million, ahead of big names like Windrush, Muhtafal and Al Mufti. He is 6^th on the Average Earnings Per Runner (AEPR) table with an impressive R28, 817 for 61 runners.

Announce has sired a long list of multiple winners including Quicksand (exported to Dubai), stakes winners Announce Speed and the ill-fated Horatio, Sound Of Thunder, Got The Message, His Calling, Seraph and others.

”They’re game and honest horses and they train on, the proof is really there for all to see,” said Gray.

Announce is being regarded by some as a ‘’sand stallion” but, Gray explains, they are equally good on grass. ”Last year, especially, I had a good run with Announce horses on the sand track. This was purely because I didn’t race on the hard winter turf tracks. But they’re winning all over, also in Durban and the Cape.”

Announce’s pedigree is ”etched in purple blood” and Gray elaborates: ”He is by National Assembly out of the Roberto mare You’re My Lady, herself a half-sister to the dam of the mighty Danehill. You’re My Lady had already produced top runners like Lady’s Delight, Daphne Donnelly and Lady Broadhurst. I earmarked her next foal Announce as a yearling for my partner, Howard Baker, an American who wanted a stallion prospect for the USA. ”

Announce was bought for R300,000 at the National Yearling Sales in 1998. ”We were prepared to go to R1 million, but he had a quarter crack and was passed by, so we got him for far less than he was worth. He won early and then ran a few disappointing races. Announce had many problems, so eventually Howard gave up and I bought him out. He raced on and picked up the Listed Thukela Handicap, but I retired him after that, not wanting to run the risk of a life-threatening injury.”

Gray believes that Announce has the potential to be a Champion Broodmare Sire and explains: ”He has the mirror image duplication of two stallions, Nasrullah and Buckpasser, in his pedigree, as well as probably the greatest broodmare of all time in Natalma, the dam of Northern Dancer. This triumvirate and their positioning of these duplications make for a potent duplication of the X chromosome through to his fillies.”

Gray concludes, as seen when he was interviewed on Tellytrack recently: ”Hey Boet, get yourself an Announce!”

Photo: St John Gray (pictured with jockey Richard Fourie), has good reason smile.