KZN Breeders Awards 2011 Share The KZN Breeders Awards take place on Friday evening in Nottingham Road at Bellwood Cottages. South Africa's champion breeders Summerhill Stud - for the seventh year in a row which is an astounding achievement - have the largest contingent of horses nominated with eight being elected, and second is Graystone Stud with Dancewiththedevil and Apple Princess up for repetitive nominations. Koos de Klerk was elected as the new chairman at the end of September for the KZN Breeders Association and he says: "The main challenge for KZN Breeders is to convince the market that KZN-bred horses are at least as good and probably, per capita, the best in the country. "The new board of directors is made up of passionate and dedicated individuals who are bent on the improvement and upliftment of breeding and promotion of the KZN-bred horse. Our immediate goal will be to promote and improve our KZN Yearling Sale to the level where we do not have to stand back for any other sale as far as quality as concerned. We need to promote the wonderful qualities that our provinces has to offer such as the natural resources, the wonderful climate the quality of our animals, including the upgrading of our Stallion band, the quality of our people as natural stockmen and the proper utilisation of the breeders premiums." As of the 23 November 2011, KZN-Bred racehorses feature in 3 of the first 5 places in South Africa for Stakes won, namely Emerald Cup Grade 2 winner The Mouseketeer (Bush Hill Stud), Pierre Jourdan who recently won the Emperor's Palace Charity Mile Grade 2 and Extra Zero who recently ran three-quarter's of a length off Red Barrel in the Emperor's Palace Ready-To-Run Cup, the latter two being bred by Summerhill Stud. The Equus Awards 2011 proved KZN's ability to produce quality racehorses, with Dancewiththedevil taking home Champion Older Filly/Mare and subsequently her breeders, Graystone Stud taking home Breeder Of The Year. Dancewiththedevil has been nominated for Outstanding Middle-Distance Female and Outstanding Older Female. A 7-time winner - she has 3 Grade 1 wins under her belt and has earned over R2-million in Stakes. The Scott Brothers' bred The Apache, by Mogok, was also an Equus Award winner of the Champion Three Year Old Colt/Gelding. He is up for nomination in the categories of Outstanding Middle-Distance Male, Outstanding Stayer Male, as well as Outstanding Three Year Old Colt. He is a 5-time winner of R1,671,250 including the Champions Cup Grade 1 and Daily News 2000 Grade 1. Pierre Jourdan - bred by Summerhill Stud - was a R60 000 purchase at the Emperor's Palace Ready-To-Run Sale and has already earned in excess of R4 Million in stakes and is currently the favourite for the Grade 1 R2-million Sansui Summer Cup to be run this Saturday. He has been nominated in the categories for Outstanding Middle-Distance Male and Outstanding Older Male. Magnificent KZN-champion stallion Kahal(GB) is the most represented stallion at the awards, being the sire of Mannequin, Fisani, Pisces Star (all fillies bred by Summerhill Stud) and Grisham bred at Spring Valley Stud. For more information on the nominees and categories please click here. We wish the breeders of the nominees all the best for this auspicious evening.