{"id":3930,"date":"2021-10-01T11:04:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T11:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/the-guv-heads-to-mauritius"},"modified":"2021-10-01T11:04:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T11:04:08","slug":"the-guv-heads-to-mauritius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/the-guv-heads-to-mauritius","title":{"rendered":"The Guv Heads To Mauritius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\">Mauritius<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>A five time South African champion trainer and a man that earned the tag of \u2018The Sun King\u2019 for his extraordinary feat of winning the Gr1 Summer Cup six times in seventeen renewals, iconic horseman Geoff Woodruff takes up a new challenge when he departs for Mauritius next week.<\/p>\n<p>The British-born Woodruff, who turns 65 on 11 October, saddled over 70 Gr1 winners and more than 200 graded stakes winners in an illustrious career that spanned over three decades.<\/p>\n<p>He started out as an assistant to Peter Skinner in England for 9 years and then moved to South Africa and worked for local master Ralph Rixon for 6 years. In 1988 Geoff took out his licence, starting with a modest 14 horses.<\/p>\n<p>But that early attack included the likes of Star Effort and Pas De Quoi and Terrance Millard\u2019s son-in-law was a big league competitor literally from day 1!<br \/>\n\u2018The Guv\u2019, as he is affectionately known in local racing circles, relocated to Cape Town from Randjesfontein in 2020 and handed the reins to his long-time assistant and daughter Lucinda from the start of this season.<\/p>\n<p>The young lady has made her Dad proud, having already saddled her first winner from only a handful of runners. \u201cIt\u2019s a very exciting venture and an ambitious concept with big plans to race in various international jurisdictions.<\/p>\n<p>Carol (my wife) and I are looking forward to the exciting challenge,\u201d he said, confirming that a similar opportunity had arisen in Saudi Arabia. \u201cFrom a lifestyle perspective, we opted for Mauritius over Saudi and the island\u2019s location also lends itself to launching raids into Dubai and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201d<br \/>\nHe explained that their brand new training centre was in process of construction, with 150 boxes already built.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe tracks are being laid out and I will be contributing to the specific design on arrival.<\/p>\n<p>\u201d<br \/>\nWith exports to Mauritius from South Africa relatively straightforward, Geoff has already purchased yearlings to be shipped to the island.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are aiming at buying quality horses here that could be competitive internationally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201d<br \/>\nIn another interesting move, South African-born Derreck \u2018DD\u2019 David, a past Mauritius champion and Hall Of Fame rider, will be joining the new team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very happy to be able to team up with Derreck again. We enjoyed terrific success earlier this century and worked very well together,\u201d said Geoff.<\/p>\n<p>We asked the veteran about his surfing and ability to communicate in French. \u201cLook, I am not a surfer. It\u2019s not a fun hobby in Cape Town waters, anyway! I\u2019m probably more of a beach walker, as such. And I did French at school and thus have the basics. So I am sure I will pick that up as we go along!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Mauritius. A five time South African champion trainer and a man that earned the tag of \u2018The Sun King\u2019 for his extraordinary feat of winning the Gr1 Summer Cup six times in seventeen renewals, iconic horseman Geoff Woodruff takes up a new challenge when he departs for Mauritius next week. The British-born Woodruff, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":3929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,245,769,241],"class_list":["post-3930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-guv","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Guv Heads To Mauritius - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/the-guv-heads-to-mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Guv Heads To Mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press &#8211; Mauritius. A five time South African champion trainer and a man that earned the tag of \u2018The Sun King\u2019 for his extraordinary feat of winning the Gr1 Summer Cup six times in seventeen renewals, iconic horseman Geoff Woodruff takes up a new challenge when he departs for Mauritius next week. 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