Racing as a two-year-old, Variety Club won the Langerman Stakes over 1500 metres at Kenilworth and finished second in the Champion Juvenile Cup at Fairview.
[5] Variety Club sustained a burst blood vessel in the race, which Ramsden believed was caused by dust in the racecourse stables.
As a four-year-old, Variety Club won the Green Point Stakes and started favourite for the Queen's Plate at Kenilworth in January.
When the race finally started he took the lead immediately and maintained his advantage throughout, winning by two and a quarter lengths and a short head from Jackson and Pomodoro.
In June, Variety Club recorded his eighth consecutive success when repeating his 2012 victory in the Rising Sun Gold Challenge, leading from the start and beating the filly Beach Beauty by a length.
[8] At the end of the South African season Variety Club went into quarantine, firstly in Mauritius and then in the United Kingdom to prepare for an international campaign in 2014.
[citation needed] In early 2014, Variety Club was campaigned in the United Arab Emirates and contested three races on the Tapeta surface at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
[10] In the Burj Nahaar over the same distance on 8 March he took the lead in the straight but was overtaken in the closing stages and was beaten one and three quarter lengths by the Godolphin filly Shuruq.
Three weeks later Variety Club was one of fifteen runners to contest the 21st running of the Godolphin Mile and started the 11/2 third favourite behind his fellow South African Soft Falling Rain (winner of the race in 2013) and Shuruq.
He took the lead soon after the start and stayed on well in the straight to win by a length from Soft Falling Rain, with Flotilla (Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, Poule d'Essai des Pouliches) in third.
He started at odds of 11.6/1 in a field of fourteen which included Able Friend, Gold-Fun, California Memory, Glorious Days, Blazing Speed (Stewards' Cup), Dan Excel (winner of the race in 2013) and the Irish raider Gordon Lord Byron (Prix de la Forêt, Haydock Sprint Cup, George Ryder Stakes).
His behavioural problems intensified at his British training base and plans to run the horse in the Prix de la Forêt at Longchamp Racecourse in October were abandoned.