At the risk of being accused of an acute lack of imagination, this week’s accolade once again involves the extraordinary Jet Master.
How could it be anything else, when the champion features as the grandsire of yet another Graded stakes winner!
Jet Master (Rakeen – Jet Lightning)
Barely a week after the stunning victory of Russian Rock (by his champion son Pomodoro) in the Gr1 Cape Guineas, grandaughter Indi Anna provided her connections with a belated Christmas gift in the Gr3 Flamboyant Stakes at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
Indi Anna – smart winner (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Owned by Andre and Joyce Macdonald and a second stakes winner for rookie trainer Peter Muscutt, the five-year-old mare is by Jet Master’s splendid son Master Of My Fate, whose rise to prominence has continued this season, to the extent that he currently finds himself at the top of the General Sires Log.
As imposing an individual as his legendary sire, the Varsfontein homebred boasts an overall strike rate of 34.5%, which means one out of every three of his runners ends up in the number one box.
From her sire’s first crop, Indi Anna joins Sentbydestiny and African Adventure as her sire’s third stakes winner of the season and ninth overall. The former defeated male rivals in the Gr1 Premier’s Champion Stakes while the progressive stayer African Adventure was a runaway winner of the lung-bursting Racing Association Stakes at Turffontein.
Moreover, Master Of My Fate’s stakes-placed runners this season include the talented Gr3 Fillies Mile runner-up Miss Elegance, who looks ready to establish herself as a serious force in the sophomore ranks following a smashing 8.50-length romp at the Vaal.
Master Of My Fate
Bred by Klipdrif Stud, Indi Anna is the first foal of unraced Zahara, a daughter of champion juvenile Argonaut, who significantly, is also the broodmare sire of last month’s Gr2 Dingaans winner Catch Twentytwo.
Grandam Jahazi, an Irish-bred daughter of Green Desert, scored four times and also produced Zahara’s own brother, the five-time winner Zanzibar Beat.
Jahazi, who counted amongst her siblings the stakes-placed Imoya (Desert King), is out of Urgent Liaison. By High Estate out of the Thatching mare Itching, she never saw the track but is a half-sister to Danehill’s champion Irish son Great Dane.
A catalogue page does not immediately reflect the true worth of a pedigree, for unraced Itching is a daughter of the renowned broodmare, Alligatrix. Third in the Gr3 Hoover Fillies Mile at two, this daughter of Alleged produced Gr1 Prix Lupin winner and French Derby runner-up and sire Croco Rouge, American Gr3 winner Persianalli and Gr2-placed Lurina, the dam of Gr2 Great Voltigeur hero Centennial.
However, their achievements paled into insignificance compared to those of their Chief Singer half-sister Alidiva. A winner of the Listed Oaks Tree Stakes, she scaled new height in the paddocks as the dam of three top level winners, an achievement which earned her Broodmare of the Year accolades in both Ireland and Italy.
Her daughter Sleepytime won the English 1000 Guineas, Ali-Royal scored a career-high in the Gr1 Sussex Stakes, Taipan twice claimed both the Gr1 Premio Roma and the Gr1 Europa Preis while Oonagh Maccool became a dual American Gr2 winner.
Interestingly, another member of this excellent family to find fame in South Africa was American import Overarching (Arch), whose third dam Desolate Sands is a half-sister to Alligatrix.
She won both the H F Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes and SA Fillies Sprint in the famous Beck silks, was twice voted the country’s Champion Older Female Sprinter and went on to become the dam of Gr1 Woolavington 2000 victress Lady Of The House (Dynasty).
