Fortunes to relish a chilled life in Oz

Jack Milner

The racing “brain drain” from South Africa will continue with the news that Andrew and Ashley Fortune will be emigrating to Australia at the end of the season.

However, while they will still be working with horses, they will lead very different lives from what they are doing currently.

“We will be working for trainers Ciaron Maher and David Eustace,” explained Ashley on Thursday.

“They have their main yard in Cranbourne, Ballarat which is in Victoria but they also have a yard at Warwick Farm in New South Wales.

“We will be running the spelling farm, which is in Moss Vale, about two hours outside Sydney.”

She explained that this decision did not come out of the blue. “We actually started talking before Covid hit us in 2019, and obviously after that nothing happened. But they got in contact with us at end of last year to find out if we were still interested, and we came to an agreement.

“It’s a very appealing deal and it’s not anything like what we are doing here. But we will still have the association with the horses, which is what we love.”

She and husband Andrew will work together running the farm and their two children are looking forward to the change. “The kids are very excited to go. We’ve had a few incidents of crime and the kids have had their safety compromised. They will have a lot better peace of mind over there.”

Ashley admits she will not miss the pressures of training. “It’s not the training itself that was the issue, but I was tired of being a debt collector, financial manager and marketing expert all rolled into one.

“In any case, I’ve always felt I was a better assistant than trainer.”

She added that they would continue training until the end of the season. “Craig Mayhew has decided he will take out his licence again and will take over some of the horses. Others will move to different trainers and some will even be going to Cape Town and other centres.”