Summerveld trainer Dennis Bosch and his staff put in hours of work just to get the four-year-old Silvano gelding Born To Perform to the races and it paid dividends on Friday night when he powered home to 4,70 length win on debut over 1600m on the Greyville polytrack under Warren Kennedy.

Born To Perform, bred by Highlands Farm Stud and owned by R Hurchund, looks a lot like his famous mother Dancer’s Daughter, a strongly-built British-bred grey whose five Grade 1 wins included a celebrated dead-heat with the legendary Pocket Power in the Vodacom Durban July of 2008.

Dancer’s Daughter was ridden in that July by Kevin Shea, who related yesterday she had a mind of her own.

She would drag riders around the training centres and on the racecourses, other times she would stop dead-still and look around and then only go when she was ready to, and would usually go faster than the rider wanted her to, and by the end of her career she was becoming reluctant to jump out of the starting stalls.

Born To Perform has inherited the strength of his mother in both mind and body

Bosch explained how the grey would walk out of the ring in the mornings and then just stand stock still and no amount of effort would budge him. He just refused to work.

He is bred in the purple and was originally bought for R500,000 at the CTS Cape Premier Yearling Sale. However, this turned out to be a shrewd pinhook for he appeared just three months later in the CTS Empress Palace Select Yearling Sale and was bought by Mayfair Speculators for R800,000.

At this year’s Super Sale at Greyville, held annually just over a week before the July, the beleaguered Mayfair Speculators dispersed a lot of their horses. Born To Perform was one of them. His reputation for being difficult had preceded him so there was little interest and Dennis Bosch purchased him for just R55,000.

Bosch, a top jockey in his day, said, “I rode him for three months myself and I won’t do that again in a hurry. We gave him a lot of time to play in the paddock too and nursed him. A lot of work was put in by everybody in the yard. He is a sound horse but the main thing was his mind started coming right. There was still the worry of how we would get him to the racecourse, but both times we have taken him there he has been exceptionally well behaved. His whole attitude has changed and we got quite excited when he won due to the amount of work we had all put in.  I don’t want to read too much into the win but while we have his mindset right we will plan another race. He has matured into a nice horse and I think he will go further. I think if he runs well next time we will know we have the horse we think we have.”

Born To Perform wore pacifiers in his barrier trial on November 30 over 1000m on the Greyville poly and he stayed on in eye-catching style under Kennedy without being asked any questions.

On Friday night he was caught wide in the early stages of the 1600m Maiden Plate from a high draw but settled well and was then given a lead into the straight when another horse came around him. He had hit the front by the 350m mark and galloped on strongly. Kennedy said. “He galloped through the line so I think there is improvement to come.”

It is early days for the grey, but he is going the right way thanks to the big team effort put in by the Bosch yard and the collective patience of themselves and owner R Hurchund.

Silvano’s progeny tend to get better with age so this horse has an interesting career ahead of him.

To date Dancer’s Daughter has produced five runners and Born To Perform is her third winner.

By David Thiselton