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Griffiths de Kock Racing was one of the top purchasers of the 2020 Karaka Ready to Run Sale.
Recently, Cranbourne-based trainer Robbie Griffiths has entered into a training partnership with Mathew De Kock, the son of 126-time Group 1-winning South African trainer Mike De Kock.
Racing Victoria officially approved the partnership earlier this year in October, with the pair to be based at Griffiths’ existing Cranbourne facility. The 29-year-old De Kock has been based in Australia since March and had initially intended to train in his own right at Cranbourne until Griffiths presented him with the partnership opportunity a few months ago.
After a successful career as a jockey, Robbie Griffiths picked up the desired mantle of a horse trainer. Born in a racing family, Griffiths had aspired to train at the highest levels.
The Impact discusses their purchases at the NZB breeze-up sale and their plans for the future
Q: You bought two sale-topping horses. Could you tell us more about what makes these horses special?
A: The horses breezed really well and had terrific pedigrees. The Sebring colt was by champion stayer and a Group One-winning mare. There is a very successful family behind his pedigree. He breezed up particularly well and had a beautiful action. Sebrings, in general, have been very successful in Australia and we think that he's got a great future ahead of him. So, we were very pleased to secure him.
The Reliable Man filly is also from a very successful race mare. The sire is doing a very good job in Australia going from strength to strength. So, we were delighted to secure her (the filly: and she should be able to give us a Classic filly. We were delighted with the way she breezed up. She ran fast time and has a really good movement really strong action. Q: What are your plans for both horses?
A: Both arrived in Australia this week. We are going to see how they travel in transit and if they settled in well. And then we can determine whether we start preparing them for a campaign in the Autumn or whether we just let them develop and grow out. Both of them have Classic pedigrees which suggest that they will be dominant in the middle to staying (distance: races. They will be more successful as we lengthen them in the distance if they run. So we could decide to mainly concentrate on this time next spring as their main goal.
Q: What are your plans for the upcoming yearling sales?
A: We going to be attending all of the feature yearling sales commencing with the Gold Coast Magic Millions in January as well as the Karaka sale in New Zealand. Then we'll look at the Inglis Classic sale in Sydney. We will be targeting all the sales to get a cross-section of pedigrees from Sprinters to Middle Distance. So we'll look at everything.
Q: Will you be making farm visits ahead of the sales?
A: Matthew and myself will be looking at horses on the farms throughout Victoria. In particular, we will be watching them during their growing environment on the farms. We will be keeping a watch on how they grow out so that when we revisit them at the sale complex, we get to see how they have developed.
From a training perspective, you want to see how much they have matured from the beginning of the yearling sale preparation through to buying time to as well as how they have handled the preparation.
Q: Do you have any particular farms in mind that you will be visiting?
A: We have an open mind you look at all the stud farms. We like to look at all the pedigrees. We're fortunate that there are a lot of great farms around both in Victoria and Queensland. Successful farms combined with the successful stallions and mares is what we're going to be targeting and successful pedigrees are what we want to be training into the future.
Q: As you have partnered with Mathew de Kock does that mean that you will also be looking at South African horses?
A: We are definitely interested in South African horses. However, it's harder to bring them to Australia with the quarantine rules and regulations in the roadmap to bring them to Australia can be lengthy. So we will be relying on, a lot on prior experience that naturally Mike (de Kock: has in that space and what he's done in past racing with other horses. Mathew has been groomed as a Group 1 trainer all his life by one of the world’s most decorated trainers. It was a real honour when Mike initially asked me to help mentor Mat when he was interested in moving to Cranbourne and now to be able to go into partnership with such a measured young man is something I am really excited about.