SA Dreams Of Glory Are Now In Motion!

Trainer Graham Motion carries the hopes and dreams of the South African racing public on his vastly experienced shoulders when he saddles two SA-bred stars at Del Mar on Saturday.

And we couldn’t be in better hands! Graham has won four Breeders’ Cup events and also has six seconds and two thirds in Breeders’ Cup races to his credit on an illustrious cv.

Graham Motion – saddles Beach Bomb and Isivunguvungu (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)

The Hollywood Syndicate’s flagbearer Isivunguvungu and Drakenstein’s Beach Bomb, who will race under the Cayton Park Stud banner on Saturday, make the 41st renewal of the Breeders’ Cup Championships the most fascinating for local fans in many a long year.

The Breeders’ Cup World Championships is a two-day, 14-race, year-end culmination that every horse, jockey, trainer, and owner across the globe has in their sights and it starts with Future Stars Friday, where the sport’s stars of tomorrow compete in five Juvenile (two-year-old) races.

The action continues on Saturday where the Breeders’ Cup will crown nine more World Champions across different surfaces and divisions, including the season-defining $7 million Longines Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Classic.

A Narrow Creek Stud-bred son of What A Winter, Isivunguvungu has drawn at gate 10 for the $1 million Prevagen Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. The 6yo won the Listed Da Hoss Stakes at his only US start and now takes on the big guns. Trainer Graham Motion said after the draw allocation earlier this week that Isivunguvungu has plenty of speed around him, which could help him in the 1000m contest. The favourite Cogburn (9) is on his inside and second favourite Bradsell is drawn at gate 12.

Beach Bomb, a  Drakenstein-bred daughter of ill-fated stallion Lancaster Bomber, drew at gate 11 in the $2 million Makers’ Mark Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. The race is run over two turns, a distance of 2200m.

Graham Motion knows the hard work has been done and now it’s up to ticking them over, a bit of luck in running, and enjoying the occasion.

A man who has won many of the most prestigious races in the United States, horses trained by him have won almost 2700 races and have banked almost $150 million.

Graham was born in Cambridge, England in May 1964 and raised at Newmarket’s Herringswell Manor Stud which was operated by his parents Michael and Jo.

Michael was an international bloodstock agent and North American representative for Tattersalls, the British bloodstock sales company. Jo rode as an amateur in England and took care of the 1951 (Aintree) Grand National winner Nickel Coin before becoming an assistant trainer in the United States. Jo now owns and operates the popular Middleburg Tack Exchange in Virginia.

Graham’s two sisters are Claire, a third-grade teacher in Middleburg, and Pippa, a wholesale gourmet food distributor in the Baltimore/Washington region. Andrew, Graham’s younger brother, has his own sales consignment company, Old Chapel Farm in Bluemont, Virginia.

After graduating from Kent School in Connecticut, Graham began working for Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard. During his six years at Sheppard’s Ashwell Stable, he traveled extensively with four-time Eclipse award winning steeplechaser Flatterer. This was followed by time with trainer Jonathan Pease in Chantilly, France. It was there that Graham met his future wife Anita (nee Hall), who was working at the time for Alain de Royer-Dupre.

Returning to the United States in 1990, Graham went to work as assistant to Bernard (Bernie) P. Bond at Laurel Park in Maryland. On Bernie’s death in 1993, two of Bond’s owners elected to leave their horses with Graham, who subsequently took out his trainer’s licence. He called his operation Herringswell Stables after his childhood home. The stable won 21 races that first year, three of them stakes with Gala Spinaway.

The Motions’ Fair Hill Training Center in Northeast Maryland (Pic – Maggie Kimmitz)

Graham, Anita and chief assistant Adrian Rolls moved the operation from Laurel Park to Fair Hill Training Centre in Northeast Maryland in 2002.

Two years later, Bushwood Stables’ Better Talk Now thrust the whole team into the international spotlight with his win in the 2004 John Deere Breeders’ Cup Turf at Lone Star Park. During his remarkable career, Better Talk Now took his connections to Japan and Dubai. “Blackie” retired in 2009 with earnings in excess of $4,000,000, and lived out his days at Fair Hill with his pal Gala Spinaway until his death in 2017 due to complications from colic surgery. Gala Spinaway lived to the ripe age of 31, passing away in 2019.

Among the many highlights in the years since have been more Breeders’ Cup victories – including Shared Account in the Filly & Mare Turf in 2010 and Main Sequence in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Turf. Main Sequence finished 2014 as a dual Eclipse Award winner, named Champion Male Turf Horse and Champion Older Male. Main Sequence returned to Fair Hill still lives there today.

Shared Account’s talented daughter, Sharing, joined her dam, sire (Speightstown) and grandsire (Pleasantly Perfect) as Breeders’ Cup winners with her victory in the Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita in 2019. Bred by Sagamore Farm, she was named Maryland-bred 2-Year-Old Filly Champion for 2019. In 2020, she won Churchill Downs’ Tepin Stakes before shipping to Royal Ascot for the Gr1 Coronation Stakes where she was a gallant second to some of the best mares in international racing. Before retiring at the end of 2020, she also won the Gr2 Edgewood Stakes and was second in the Gr1 American Oaks.

In 2011, Graham’s name was recorded in the history books as the trainer of a Kentucky Derby winner when Animal Kingdom stormed down the Churchill Downs stretch to win the 137th renewal of America’s premier race. Two years later, Animal Kingdom added more lustre to his trainer’s resume with a win in the Dubai World Cup. Animal Kingdom was awarded the Eclipse Award for champion 3 year old in 2011.