Owner : Helen Whillans
Pedigree
SamumDurban Thunder
Donna Alicia
Unnamed
2015 chestnut filly
Gamut
A Long Way
Full of Fruit
The family
This filly, a first foal, comes from a family full of fine racing
mares.
A Long Way was unraced but is a half sister to 3 winners over jumps
the best of whom is Thats A Wrap, a 4 time hurdle winner for Irish
trainer Thomas Mullins.
She has also bred the mare Naranja, the winner of a bumper and 3
hurdles for Jamie Snowden. Naranja was also placed in a Listed
bumper.
Further back, 3rd dam Full of Pep was an outstanding broodmare
with a record of 10 winners from 15 foals.
The best of these were a quarter of black type jumps winners in
France - Full of Ambition, Fioca, Aubisque and Full Contact.
Full of Pep is also the grand dam of Long Run, who recorded wins in
the King George VI Chase (twice) and the 2011 Cheltenham Gold Cup
beating Denman and Kauto Star.
About the sire
The German bred Durban Thunder (chestnut born 2006) was trained in Germany by Torsten Mundry
for owners Stall Tinsdal. The horse was bred in Germany by Frau M. Sohl and won 6 races at 4 and 5yr old.
His best victory came in a Group 1 at Munich over 10f beating Famous
Name into second. He also raced at 6 finishing 2nd twice in Group
pattern races.
Durban Thunder is bred from the male line of Monsun which made him attractive to a certain extent to breeders when he first stood at stud in Ireland in 2013. He was only there for 2 seasons though and re-located to Germany in 2015. For the 2019 season he stood at Haras de Fleury in France.
He has had few runners to date (oldest progeny are 5yr olds in 2019). From his first crop, the Irish trained Automatic has run a couple of promising races in novice hurdles in 2019, whilst Durban Breeze has been placed in a Point-to-Point. .
It was a few weeks prior to the Tattersalls Ireland August 2018
National Hunt Store Sale that Callum began his in-depth study of the
catalogue. Nearly 800 horses and out with normal duties, the
Stable Jockey was rarely sighted such was his attention to detail.
As always, various angles were known to be explored but even the
Spanish Inquisition would struggle to obtain any inkling of his
thoughts pre-sale. Then again, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition......
Day 1 of the Sale saw the acquisition of
Lot86 by Callum of a
(then) not overbig, but sturdy daughter of the un-raced Gamut
broodmare A Long Way.
Now that sire .....Durban Thunder?
'Mila' as
she was subsequently named, was the only progeny of the German
bred and raced stallion in this year's sale, although 3 had been on
show the previous August. So, darker than a black cat in a coal
cellar at midnight, the filly looks well bought as viewed now at the
start of the 2019-20 season, 'Mila' has furnished and grown and
stands at over 16.1hh with a strong physique to match.
Re-winding a little, on arriving back in Hawick from the sales arena 'Mila' was dispatched down the road to complete her education with local handler Gary Rutherford. Gary is a busy man these days, so we're always grateful when he can complete the education process for our young stock. That pre-training process certainly allowed this filly to blossom as when she returned to Dodlands she was barely recognisable from the horse that set off a couple of months previously.
'Mila' was in training at Dodlands for a few weeks in the Spring of
2019, where she quickly slotted into the morning routine and gained
valuable galloping experience.
This will be put to good effect in the latter months of 2019, and
we'd hope that she would be ready for a racecourse debut in a bumper
in the second half of this season.
| Season | win | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | other | |
| 2019-20 | NH Flat | |||||
