Mostert’s are living the dream
OWNER and small-time breeder Marius Mostert made a heartwarming gesture in the winner’s enclosure recently when donating the full share of his stakes winnings to trainer Gary Rich.
Marius is the husband of former Gold Circle media liaison manager Gill Mostert nee Simpkins.
The winning horse was Clouds Of Witness and Marius said, “I own 50% of this Master Of My Fate gelding and Gary had given Billy Jacobson the opportunity to ride him regardless.
Billy
“Billy works on our farm and is like family to us, so we won the race with our jockey and our colours and it also flashed through my mind that Gary wakes up early in the morning like every other trainer and goes through the same hardships despite not having the biggest or highest class string so I thought it would be a small gesture and show gratitude for helping our dream come true.”
Marius has his own business which keeps him busy and Gill runs their farm in Summerveld.
Billy is the farm manager and Bugsy Saunders is the manager of the horses. The Mosterts have a small band of broodmares and have recently added a stallion when they retired their partowned Australian-bred horse Kingdom Come.
He will be one of the only raced maidens to be standing in South Africa but is well bred being by Kentucky Derby and World Cup winner Animal Kingdom out of a Listed-placed Not A Single Doubt mare.
He showed promise and ran four places in five starts but unfortunately had an entrapped epiglottis and couldn’t breathe.
Kingdom Come’s first cover will be Var mare Qarman who won on debut over 1 000m at Turffontein and had nine more unplaced runs.
Qarman currently has a “beautiful” Captain Of All filly at foot and was last covered by Ideal World, sire of Sun Met winner Rainbow Bridge.
The Mosterts also stand the five-time winning Jet Master mare Jet Intombi, who is in foal to Twice over, sire of Vodacom Durban July winner Do It Again.
The farm is also used to spell young horses and as a holiday place for horses in training needing rests.
Marius has about nine horses in training including the talented colt White Lightning and the Australian-bred gelding Celebration Rock, both trained by Paul Lafferty.
He also has a share in a promising Lafferty-trained Silvano out of a Visionaire mare, who will be coming out in a barrier trial soon.
Legislate
One of Gill’s favourite horses was July winner Legislate and fittingly the first horse she has ever owned by herself is his first progeny to be sold at public auction.
The Mosterts’ “Lovinglife Stables” bought this Legislate colt out of Listedwinning Lundy’s Liability mare Bursary for R100,000 at the recent Cape Premier Yearling Sale.
Marius gave the colt to Jill for her birthday and he will run one day in her newly registered colours.
Marius has done the full circle in racing. As a student he had a job on course as a “paper boy”.
These are the helpers who are on hand to fit the rolls of paper into the Tote machines. He then progressed on to Tote machine operator and then became a supervisor.
From a long time ago he enjoyed punting but his passion extends far beyond just betting.
Gill was also known during her time at Gold Circle for her passion for the sport.
The couple are certainly living the dream in the “dream industry”.