Surfer's Eye, standing at Champion Breeders' Summerhill Stud, borders on a broodmare phenomenon - having produced eight runners, seven winners - with four of them achieving Black Type status, not a statistic common among broodmares.

"There is quite a story about this mare," explains Peter Blyth. "I bought all of a package of 25 horses off the owner to secure Vogue, because he was packing up and I knew that this mare was the whole package; she would have gone for a high price if she had been sent to auction."

"We phoned Jack and asked if there was any chance of Clear Creek coming back to breed. He said: 'well, why shouldn't she breed?' The vet said she would never be able to have a foal, Jack said 'that guy doesn't know what he is talking about, she has a Basuto pony foal at foot!"

"Emperor's Dance as a filly in training was with a top trainer in KZN but the trainer told the owner he didn't think very much of her and that he should sell her at a dispersal sale," recalls Cathy Martin, co-owner of Hadlow Stud. "It turned out to be a bad decision on their part"...

With Gypsy's Warning challenging her title for the Matriarch Stakes Grade 1 on 25 November and recently being in the media for selling at the Keeneland November Sale for a price of $1.05 million, we have a look at her dam Gypsy Queen who resides at Rathmor Stud ...

Foaled in 1992, Pelican Brief is by Piaffer out of a Sea Cottage mare Arctic Sea, and is the dam of 2005 Vodacom Durban July winner ...