SEAMUS Burns, no stranger to big race success in his long Lodge Park Stud career, struck South African gold for the first time at Scottsville last Sunday when his bargain purchase Ambiorix landed a two-year-old Group 1.

Burns enjoys testing his equine judgement on his annual January South African holiday which he normally arranges to coincide with the Cape Premier Yearling Sale, and last year he picked out a colt by the Jebel Hatta winner Vercingetorix out of an Indigo Magic mare.