STORY BEHIND OWNERS’ COLOURS: JILL WARNER

For more than a decade Jill and John Warner have made the trip from their home in England to South Africa, lighting up the Cape racing landscape with their infectious enthusiasm and broad smiles. You’ll always see them at the racecourse, and often they’ll be at Sonwabe Beach with Snaith Racing, Jill on horseback, John with camera in hand.

“We’ve been coming to South Africa for 11 years now,” says Jill. “We bought our first yearling when we visited Klawervlei Stud and met John Koster where we were first introduced to the stallion Captain Al. That yearling, purchased for R475,000 at the Cape Yearling Sales, happened to be Carry On Alice.

“We took out our owners’ colours and it was actually a group effort in deciding what they’d be. We liked purple, our daughters are into pink and John told us that we had to have yellow sleeves, so we could see our finish at the finishing line!

“A year later we bought a house on the Val de Vie polo estate and every year we arrive in South Africa in September and stay until the end of April, except for two weeks around Christmas when we’re always back in the UK. It’s wonderful experiencing Spring and Summer at both ends,” JIll says.

The Warners have certainly enjoyed great success with their South African adventure, although Jill freely admits that they are unlikely to ever get another Carry On Alice. “She’s by far the best horse we’ve owned and it’s going to be hard for any other horse to compete with her. How does one compete with a five-time Grade 1 winner,” she asks, almost rhetorically.

Carry On Alice won 11 times in her 29 starts – among them the Computaform Sprint Gr 1and Cape Flying Championship Gr 1 – and collected R4.5-million in stake earnings. “She’s now a successful broodmare at Arrowfield Stud in Australia,” Jill confirms.

They have also enjoyed Gr 1 success with Rio Querari, another high-class Cape sprinter, trained by Justin Snaith and now retired. She says that they place a high premium on a horse’s post-racing career. “We are committed to making sure any horse involved goes on to have another career after racing. It’s incredibly important to John and I. We know where they go, what they are doing, and for all the enjoyment they give us they have a second life after racing. Rio Querari was rehomed by the Western Cape Equine Trust and is now having a whale of a time in the paddock.”

Warner is complimentary of our racing as a general experience. “South Africa is incredibly inclusive as a racing environment. We have found that it doesn’t matter if you have one horse or a hundred, you’re always made to feel welcome by the trainers, jockeys, other owners and stud owners, all of whom we count amongst our very good friends. Cape Racing has such a great ambiance and it’s great fun.

“We haven’t had winners in our own colours for a while, but we have a handful of unraced youngsters coming through and we’re hoping that they can find the No1 box for us. We really are

very thankful to the Cape racing fraternity for always making our stays so enjoyable and special.”