In another first for South African breeding, prominent owner Willem Ackerman and Heversham Farm are exporting an unraced three-year-old gelding to Europe for National Hunt (jump) racing.
The gelding named ‘Tossed Salad’ is by Wings of Desire out of the five-time winning Mogok mare, Runalong, and was chosen for the suitability of his size, conformation and pedigree for jump racing.
Tossed Salad got his name from the theme song of the hit TV series, ‘Frasier’. Heversham’s Kat Riley wanted to name the bay gelding ‘Frasier’ because, like the TV character, he is quite an imposing chap, somewhat aloof and with an attitude. When ‘Frasier’ was not available, ‘Tossed Salad’ was the suitable next choice.
Heversham’s only previous foray into jump racing was the exporting of the Danehill stallion Solskjaer (IRE), which proved to be successful as he produced the multiple Group 1 winning steeplechaser Found a Fifty, last seen in action this April when he won the Jack McInerney Memorial Fairyhouse Chase (G2) for trainer Gordon Elliott.
Solksjaer was imported to South Africa for stud duties at Summerhill Stud in 2007. He didn’t quite make the grade was retired in 2015. Soon after he was retired, he was placed on an auction where he received no bids, but Advocate Nigel Riley of Heversham came to hear of him and secured him for only R5,000.
Riley, who is hoping for more good fortune with Tossed Salad, said: “Solskjaer was a half-brother to Yeats (Sadler’s Wells), who won seven Gr1 races and at the time was picking up momentum as a sire of excellent jump horses.”