Indigofera chipped a radius bone, the long bone above the knee, in an incident on 2 August, her first run as a three-year-old, and is unlikely to race again this season, if ever.Indigofera won all five of her races in Kimberley last season, including the Kimberley Nursery, but Spies said on Monday, "we’ll only see her as a late three-year-old or early four-year-old now’’.
Spies, who took the owners’ championship in the region with his 107 runners earning R731,475, was second to Peter Miller on the Kimberley trainers’ table.
The 644 runners saddled by perennial champ Miller earned R2,96 million. Spies’ 306 runners banked R1.73 million, but punters who followed the Vaal-based handler in Kimberley would have made a R8.60 profit for every R1 spent on a win.
``I’ve made an effort to take my horses to Kimberley in the last couple of years,’’ said Spies. ``What I like about Kimberley is the racing surface. It’s very forgiving and you don’t generally incur the type of injuries you get racing on the grass, especially in winter, or on the Vaal sand track. So it gives trainers a nice alternative for unsound horses. I wish we could have a track like this in Johannesburg.
``Racing there is also very relaxed and I enjoy the atmosphere.’’
Spies, however, says he will probably not be as big a force in Kimberley in the future because Phumelela is to withdraw the R600 travel subsidy from 1 October.
``It costs R1,200 to get a horse to Kimberley from the Vaal,’’ said Spies. ``I might meet some resistance from my owners about taking horses there when the cost is going to double.’’
Phumelela’s Racing Executive Patrick Davis said the subsidy had been put in place in 2008 and was only intended to be offered for a year in order to increase the sizes of fields.
"We allowed it to continue longer than intended. But we’ve now relaxed the elimination clauses whereby local Kimberley trainers are only guaranteed one berth in each race (except those races for non winners), rather than two. So it seemed an opportune time to withdraw the travel allowance - especially because the Kimberley trainers felt that would be a fair trade for opening up the elimination system.’’
Sherman Brown was named Kimberley’s Champion Jockey.