TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/920057
Step forward, our heroes. Robert Redford and Ru- dolf Valentino. It was Heiko's idea: Tiberius Caesar did us such a good turn all those years ago, now we should look af- ter him. 'Can't we claim him, Julian, and keep him at Logis? He can be your teaser.' €12,500 later, the use- less claimer who could have been a contender was back in the ownership of his breeders. How apt, you might think, until you know that this new task came with a new rhyming (yet less than poetic) soubriquet: Caesar The Teaser. Realising, a couple of years into the role, that sub- jecting a stallion to the unusual rigors of teasing might not have been as charitable a thing to do as they'd thought, Heiko and Julian took further pity on the horse and decided to send him a mare. A mare all of his own. And not just any mare. It had to be a good mare, reasoned Julian, a mare who might breed a good one and bring some redemption on his poor benighted head. Listed-placed Toamasina, barren again, was sent for, and led from her stable to the barn behind the tractor park. There, Tiberius Caesar covered himself in glory. The resulting foal was, everyone at Logis agreed, the nicest that spring: you can keep your Shamardals and Siyounis, Le Havres and Oasis Dreams, the son of the teaser was the best on the stud – and the talk of the town. Soon nearby folk with a mare needing covering were calling Julian for Tiberius Caesar's ser- vices. A fee was invented: a case of Provençal rosé. Caesar might not have been run off his feet, but Ju- lian was drinking the ultimate in ill-gotten gains well into the autumn.