FINAL FURLONG
Markus Jooste flogs his prize horses
ASHA SPECKMAN, PERICLES ANETOS, LUTHO MTONGANA and PALESA VUYOLWETHU TSHANDU
● THE crumbling of Markus Jooste’s Steinhoff empire was this week augmented by the undoing of his horse-racing stable following the sale of two prized horses.
The sale was allegedly done privately at the instruction of Jooste, who has gone to ground. The horses were sold to his business associate and former Tekkie Town owner, Braam van Huyssteen, himself a racing mogul. Van Huyssteen sold Tekkie Town to Steinhoff in September last year.
On Friday Van Huyssteen confirmed that he had purchased one of Jooste’s horses, Legal Eagle, for R3.2-million.
Jooste joined the industry in the 1990s with about 250 horses. He is the secondbiggest horse-racing investor in Africa after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai.
Sources in the horse-racing industry say all Jooste’s horses are for sale. This includes about 350 in training and about 100 mares for breeding.
The majority of the horses run under the name Mayfair Speculators, set up as a partnership between him and his son-inlaw, who is now the sole director of the company. As many as another eight horses race under the names of Jooste and unidentified partners.
Derek Brugman, Jooste’s racing manager, is undertaking the sale negotiations. When contacted for comment, he said: “I’m very busy, it’s 6 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, sorry, I cannot speak.”
A source who wished to remain anonymous said: “Jooste has definitely said all the horses must be sold.”
Legal Eagle and Edict of Nantes, Jooste’s prized horses, are favourite and second favourite for next year’s Queen’s Plate and the Met. Legal Eagle is South Africa’s horse of the year.
Edict of Nantes has been sold to a trainer in Hong Kong on behalf of a patron for $750000 (R9.9-million). Last week Trip to Heaven was sold allegedly for R400 000 or a 50% share in the horse.
But horses, like cars, depreciate. The market in horse racing is depressed currently “due to what’s gone down here”, the source said.
Jooste and his team are apparently trying to avoid a fire sale, which would mean the horses would be put on auction, the market would be flooded, there would be bargains and people would be able to purchase at prices that are affordable and more reasonable. “The vast majority of the horses which Jooste bought were at overinflated prices,” the source said.
Jooste was one of the main players in Cape Thoroughbred Sales, the biggest sales firm in the country which holds a big sale in Cape Town just before the Met. He has also resigned from this board.
At previous auctions the firm is alleged to have pushed prices on all the horses sold, driving up the sales average to turn it into South Africa’s top sales company.