OFF THE RECORD #40

A Lifelong Commitment to Horses and Humans
The Inspiring Story of Dr Marianne Thomson

In honour of Women’s Month, we celebrate the life and achievements of Dr Marianne Thomson, a trailblazer in South African breeding. Though she shuns the spotlight and might not embrace the title, she is undeniably one of the elder stateswomen of the industry. Her long and vibrant career serves as an inspiring example for others to follow.

Above: Dr T, still very active at 84 (photo supplied)

Marianne reckons her mother suspected she’d given birth to a daughter that was not going to adhere to conventional ways. A bit of a rebel, no doubt. She named her after the symbolic figure representing the French Republic for values of liberty, equality and the spirit of the French Revolution. Young Marianne had a love for animals that deepened as she grew older, leading her to pursue a career in veterinary science. Her success as a veterinarian was matched only by her passion for thoroughbreds and her decorated career as a breeder under the banner of Ambiance Stud.

At 84 years of age, Marianne is still as sharp as they come, with her trademark ready wit that endeared her to many, over many decades. Both of those traits were revealed in a rare letter she wrote to Sporting Post in September, 2014, at the height of the Markus Jooste era. Addressed to the late Jooste himself and entitled ‘Liewe Markus’ (Dear Markus), she said (translated and shortened), “I am writing this as an older, small breeder and in our language, Markus, because this is our war. If I phoned you, I’d be overwhelmed by business jargon within a minute. What makes you so angry that you don’t care what you are doing to our shaky industry? How do you deal with this in your inner, quiet self? I say to myself, we’ve survived Hurvitz, Gardiner and Ross, Sydney Press, Hilda Podlas and many others, we’ll survive you, too!”

As small in physical stature as she is in the scale of her operation, Marianne has achieved remarkable success in breeding. She has produced eight individual Grade 1 winners from a carefully selected group of broodmares and their progeny. Ambiance-breds have claimed four Golden Horse Sprints (Al Nitak, Cataloochee, Bull Valley, Alesian Chief), the Cape Derby and Cape Guineas (The Sheik), the Majorca Stakes (Sarabande), the Met (Alastor), and most recently, the Summer Cup with Royal Victory. Another notable Ambiance graduate, Almah, won the Grade 2 J&B Reserve Stayers and was named Equus Champion Stayer in 2003. This track record spans the full spectrum of top-level racing success, from sprinters and milers to middle-distance champions and stayers. Royal Victory came close to completing the ‘Big Three’ for Ambiance in the 2024 Durban July, finishing third behind Oriental Charm.

Robin Bruss wrote in a 2023 article: “The global rule of thumb in the 65 countries that conduct racing is that a Grade 1 win is achieved by one horse in approximately every 1000 horses, and therefore to breed a Grade 1 winner is a rare and signal achievement, which most breeders only aspire to, but never attain.”

Ambiance-mares have also had a generational influence with the likes of Sarabande’s daughter Volta (dam of champion sprinter Master Archie) and Lil’Bacio (dam of Derby winner Out Of Your League and stakes winner Zeus). Almah was exported to Australia for stud, where she produced six winners from seven runners, including the Gr3 winner Sensible Lover. The Sheik, as a broodmare sire, is responsible for last season’s champion two-year-old filly, Quid Pro Quo.

Marianne attributes the stud's reputation for selling top-quality stock at below-market prices to her underdeveloped marketing skills and reluctance to promote her successes at the sales auctions. She said: “I am not comfortable shouting from the rooftops, but even if I did, breeding would never have been a financially sound venture. Most of us breed for the love of it. It’s a quick way to the poorhouse and if I didn’t learn to hustle my way through life, I’d be out like a light!”

She’d learnt a quick business lesson as a young girl on the family farm in Montagu, Western Cape, when she was given three goats and, in a few years, built her herd alongside her father’s goats to about 150 head, which was equal to his own tally. “I was dead set on owning a riding horse, so I swapped my entire goat herd with my dad for a thoroughbred he had bought for 12 pounds. That was the worst business decision of my life!”

Marianne, her brothers and sisters worked with horses on the farm, most days. They led big Percheron plough horses through the Montagu vineyards and, once every two months, got to ride other horses on the farm on a 12-mile country route to Montagu, where they were shod by the town farrier. “We dared each other to trot and post all the way there and back, so when we got home from these expeditions our muscles were so sore it took us days to recover,” she reminisced.

Marianne’s aunt and good friend was Marlene Thomson, eight years her senior. When Marianne was a young student, Marlene married the legendary trainer Syd Laird, fuelling the fire for racing and breeding that was burning in her heart. “In the early 1960s I visited Syd and Marlene at their old Roamer Lodge in Milnerton where they had great horses like Sea Cottage and Colorado King. Dennis Drier was his assistant then and Dennis fancied me a bit. Syd used to say, ‘Dennis, you stay away from her, focus on your work, she’s the brains in the family!’

“Later, the Lairds moved their operation to Durban. Their son Alec was just a ‘lightie’ then. In the early 1980s they moved again to Newmarket in Alberton. I went to see them as often as I could. I followed Syd Laird around wherever he went, I tailed him. I watched how he selected horses at the sales. There were National Sales with up to 800 horses in the catalogue and we did the rounds to all of them. I called Marlene by her name, but Syd was always respectfully, ‘Uncle Syd’. Marlene died just recently, we had special times together.”

She fondly recalled Alec’s first trip to Newmarket, UK, before the days of his first international track star, London News. “I wanted to visit veterinary colleagues in the UK and Ireland so Marlene asked if Alec could go with me as he had not been overseas. Syd arranged for Alec to visit famous facing yards. We loved exploring the Irish pubs. One night, in a pub, there were so many stares from them, I asked Alec, ‘Please call me Mum!’ ’’

An early lesson in Marianne’s breeding career was that unexpected things happen all the time and, sometimes, the most unlikely pedigree crosses can produce freak talents – a theme we’ve dealt with a number of times in this column recently.

When she was doing duties as a vet at Arthur Pfaff’s Daytona Stud in the 1970s, there was a client of the stud, Mr Distel, who was keen on becoming a breeder. He insisted on getting a foot in the door, so John Kramer was commissioned to find him a broodmare. He brought back a mare called Malta (by Mother’s Boy) he’d bought for R50 from the Passerini family who were based near the mountains in the Koue Bokkeveld. “Malta was put to a big, clumsy stallion named Beau Charles (Charlottesville), who on paper was perhaps the worst stallion she could go to. But she foaled down with Big Charles, who won the 1981 Durban July!”

Marianne worked with Big Charles as a youngster. She recalled: “He had very windswept hind legs and slack pasterns. The pasterns were so low down he was bruising and abrading the skin on the ground, so I fitted them with sanitary pads to cover the exposed area and this prevented injury. We didn’t have the modern pastern wraps back then. His pasterns lifted in time and his hind legs got stronger.”

She left South Africa for a brief period to broaden her knowledge in the USA, but that was a waste of time. “I was an African woman, a no nonsense one at that. The American vets made me stand in the corner like ‘the savage from Africa’, watching them work. I was an Onderstepoort graduate – in those years the Vet Faculty on earth. Some time after that, back home, I started reading about a vet in Germany who was doing the most amazing colic surgery on their huge Hanoverians. I flew over to meet him and on my second day of my time spent there, his assistant, the later famous Joseph Boening, asked me ‘Wilst du mit operieren?’ (Do you want to assist?). I really enjoyed this, became good at it.”

Marianne and her husband John Freeman (from the original Daytona and then Boland Stud fame) acquired a farm in Prince Albert Hamlet north of Ceres. On her return from Germany, she built a theatre on the farm to specialise in colic operations. The farm was primarily a fruit farm, but Marianne soon started breeding there with five mares which grew to a band of 15. She quipped: “John used to say to our kids, ‘Mom’s bloody mares!’ and attend to his fruit farming. That was until we sold a foal on auction for R50,000 and when The Sheik came along, he fetched R180,000. Then, ‘Mom’s bloody mares’ suddenly became, ‘our mares’!”

In 1994, Marianne identified Jessamine, a stakes-winning filly by Del Sarto, as a potentially suitable mare for her breeding plans. She discussed a deal with Jessamine’s trainer Jean Heming, but fellow-breeder Lionel Cohen also threw his hat into the ring. “I had to go to R100,000 to secure Jessamine, an awful lot of money in those days.”

Her faith in Jessamine paid off. Sent to Ascot Stud’s prized stallion, Al Mufti, she gave birth to Grade 1 champions, The Sheik and Al Nitak, and won the Equus Award for broodmare of the year in 2003.

“Jessamine foaled unexpectedly early when she was carrying The Sheik. When we went to her paddock to take her to the foaling barn one day, the young lad had already popped out and had swallowed away a full udder of milk. He was sprightly and happy. Jessamine looked as if nothing had happened.

“The Sheik was a gorgeous-looking horse with classic features and became a double classic winner. His full-brother Al Nitak was not a contender in the ‘handsome race’. He was big, strong and temperamental, with a head like a coffin.

“Al Nitak started his career in KZN and won a race over 1800m and one over 2000m, but he was a difficult horse and decidedly moderate over ground. His owner Mary Liley wanted to retire him, but nobody wanted him because of his bad demeanour. I discussed his future with her and as a last resort recommended she send him to trainer Buddy Maroun, the ‘sprinting wizard’ of Gauteng. The rest of the story is part of racing’s folklore.”

Above: Al Nitak beating National Currency and Golden Loom in the 2003 Golden Horse Sprint. (sahorseracing.com)

In January 2002, four-year-old Al Nitak made his debut in an Allowance Plate over 1200m at Newmarket. There was strong on-course talk for the plodding, ill-tempered, former KZN stayer. He was backed to 15-10 favourite, led from start to finish and won easily. He won a further nine sprints, including the Tommy Hotspur, the Merchants and the Golden Horse Sprint, and ended his career with two Group places in Dubai.

Marianne said: “Lisa Prestwood was the only jockey who could ride Al Nitak. He disliked every other jockey and only ran for her. Lisa said she was scared of his ferocious temper, like the other jocks, but she got on him and did what she had to do. She handled him admirably. Buddy cried like a child the day they won the Golden Horse at Scottsville, a memorable race.”

Not too memorable, for reason of her most embarrassing moment, was Alastor’s victory for Sean Tarry and Garth Puller in the J&B Met of 2005. He was an outsider at 50-1 and Marianne recounted: “I was sitting on the Kenilworth grandstand before the race discussing Alastor’s chances with a friend. I said, ‘You know, this young trainer has raced Alastor too often. Does he know what he is doing? Alastor has no chance.

“I didn’t know Sean personally, but I went up to congratulate him after Alastor’s surprise win. He smiled and said, ‘Dr Thomson, I was sitting behind you on the grandstand before the race. I heard what you said. But thank you anyway!’ We laugh about it today, but on Met day that year, I was blushing.”

Tarry also won two Grade 1s with the Ambiance sprinter Bull Valley, bred from the unfashionable Toreador and out of a mare by the out-and-out staying sire, Saumarez. Marianne said: “Bull Valley was another experimental nick and we sold him unnamed. That was a period in which I didn’t name our foals for a while. But I actually enjoy giving them names because that makes them easier to follow on the racetrack. The other day, Dr Melandie Taljaardt phoned me with congratulations on having bred her mare by Wylie Hall out of Perfidia, who’d won her fifth career race at Turffontein. I didn’t even know that Melandie’s winning mare was named Cerulean Dancer. Perhaps she can come back to Ambiance for breeding, we’ll see.”

Marianne and John moved from Prince Albert Hamlet to another fruit farm in the Brandwag district near Worcester, where Al Nitak and in later years Sarabande and Alastor were born. The grey Sarabande was one of trainer Joey Ramsden's early stars. Marianne bred her from Goldmark and the three-time winner Blitz Polka, by Truly Nureyev. “Blitz Polka was a mare that was given to me as a weanling. Her legs were so bad that I was asked to put her down. But I took a chance with her and Sarabande appeared. It helps to have an idea of which defects will be passed on and which ones are evident due to external factors.”

When the Brandwag farm suffered financial strain due to unexpected poor crops, she structured a deal with the bank whereby she bought back and retained her own stretch of land on the property and continued her breeding interests.

“I’d become a bit of a slum lord so I could wangle my way out of trouble,” Marianne joked. “When we sent our kids to university in Cape Town we bought a cheap house for them to stay in. We fixed it up nicely on weekends with the help of my farm team and flipped it for a good profit to buy the house next door, and so on. Those investments carried us through, there is no way I could’ve done it on a veterinarian’s income and selling horses at the auctions.”

In 2015, Marianne moved her entire operation to a new home in the beautiful Nuy Valley near Worcester. “I got divorced, my kids moved out and settled in various countries and we had a manager murdered on the old farm which was hugely upsetting. I started afresh on a farm among the vineyards of the Nuy Valley, a stunning place also suitable for horses. I have 10 mares left, plus 20 boarders, but I don’t really board any mares (This keeps my kids off my back!). The mares get a lot of attention, because I have cut back on my veterinary services. The travelling between farms got too much. I still attend to two smaller studs plus my own. At my age, I don’t think I can be called lazy for doing less.“

Royal Victory (Pathfork) and Alesian Chief (Vercingetorix) were born at the Nuy farm. Royal Victory’s dam, Kailani, just this week foaled down with a colt by Danon Platina. “He’s all black and will turn grey like his sire.” Marianne also delivered a foal by Rafeef out of All In The Mind, by Var. He is a half-brother to Alesian Chief, the lightning fast, but ill-fated chestnut who won the Merchants, the Golden Loom Handicap and the Golden Horse Sprint for trainer Corrie Lensley. “He is a smashing foal, very correct and classy,” she said.

Above:  Ambiance Stud's Andries Stevens with a Rafeef-sired half-brother to Alesian Chief, just 12 days old in this photo. (Supplied).

Marianne uses the G1 Goldmine software programme in her pedigree assessments, but says she relies heavily on her proven, personal method of physically matching stallions with suitable mares. “Over the years I made a point of attending all the stallion days where I could see the new sires close up and look carefully at their conformation. I also look for well-natured horses, a good temperament is important. I own shares and half shares in several stallions, though I missed out on One World, which was an oversight. I saw Charles Dickens at Drakenstein last week, he is a smart horse.”

Marianne relocated most of her original farm team from their former Brandwag base to the Nuy establishment. She continues to care for nine families, including that of her foreman, Andries Stevens, a long-time employee who has become a highly capable horseman under her guidance. Reflecting on her approach to life, she shared: “I am not a religious person. I live close to the earth and nature, and I believe it is my social responsibility to uplift and help people when I am able to do so. This has kept me healthy and happy.”

Dr. Marianne Thomson is truly an exceptional figure—an inspiring leader and caretaker. We salute her unwavering dedication and remarkable spirit.

Above: Marianne among other award-winners at the 2024 Equus Banquet (photo: Cape Racing)