The SAF Connection

 

The South African racing season came to a close on Sunday, as Western Winter snatched the Sires Championship from Jallad, thanks to a Horse Of The Year winning performance from Winter Solstice in the last feature race of the season, the GR1 Champions Cup.

 

Jallad put up a valiant effort with his sons Zebra Crossing and Grafton Street taking first and second in the Gr3 Derby and Talahatchie winning the GR1 for juveniles, but Western Winter cashed in with Roxanne taking the GR1 juvenile fillies event, Anti-Freeze finishing third behind Talahatchie, and Winter Solstice taking the big one. The runners listed here earned R415 625 for Jallad and R581 250 for Western Winter, for a difference of R165 625. With season earnings just under R10m, Western Winter edged out Jallad by a mere R116 557.

 

Special mention must go to the mighty Fort Wood who took third place with just over R7m in earnings from far fewer runners than the top two. Fort Wood tops the log in terms of win and in-the-money strike rates of 19.33% and 58.71% respectively.

 

In running second and third in the juvenile fillies event, Jet Past and Stratos helped first-season sire Jet Master wrap up the Juvenile Sires championship ahead of fellow South African bred first-season sire, Captain Al. This is an amazing achievement for the two local stallions and I’m sure everyones hoping their youngsters train on to greater heights. Goldkeeper, National Assembly, Jallad, and Western Winter followed them home with earnings above the R1m mark.

 

Northern Guest (R8.7m) and Elliodor (R7.8m) dominated the damsires championship, with Dancing Champ and Golden Thatch next best having each earned over R5m. Further down the log, in 8th place, mention should be made of Al Mufti who has the best win strike rate of the top 10 damsires.

 

The jockeys title went to MJ Odendaal who put in a massive amount of work to finish on 199 winners from 1606 rides. Considering strike rates though (all well above 20%), the likes of Khan, Strydom, Marcus, Marwing, and Lloyd stand in a group in a different class to the rest.

The trainers title once again went to Geoff Woodruff, this time falling fractionally short of R10m with a healthy 20.81% strike rate. Trainer Mike De Kock, concentrating more on international exploits these days, finished a good second on R8.2m with a strike rate of 19.39%.

 

In closing the season, let’s not forget the tragic demise of Rabiya (by Jallad) on July day, and the career ending injury to Dunsinane (by Fort Wood) in the same race. Heart-felt condolences go out to all concerned.

 

 

This weekend sees the running of the GR1 Gold Cup, South Africa’s premier event for stayers. Twenty runners face the starter for this two mile event to be held at Greyville, and no less than 7 of them are by Badger Land. My personal selection is Western Prospect, another son of Western Winter.

 

 

A South African bred filly, Tara’s Touch by Tara’s Halls, won a GR3 race at Woodbine in Canada this week over 6 furlongs on the turf. From 5 starts in North America, she now has a GR3 win, a listed win and a listed second to her credit.

 

The big news is that Greys Inn, the US-bred and SAF-owned/trained son of Zabeel out of an Australian mare, is headed for Australia. The plan is to use the GR1 Caulfield over 2000 metres on 8 October as a warm-up for the Cox Plate on 22 October. Depending on how he takes those two runs, he may have a tilt at the 3200 metre Melbourne Cup on 2 November. Don’t be surprised if he’s sold for big money to Australian breeding interests if he does well over there.