If ever a stallion deserved the moniker ‘Mr Reliable’, it surely must be the Varsfontein-based Master Of My Fate.
Firmly established amongst the country’s elite stallions, he has the credentials to go with it.
Master Of My Fate – majestic son of Jet Master (Pic – Jeremy Nelson)
A son of the incomparable Jet Master, to whom he bears an uncanny likeness, the imposing bay broke through at the elite level when second on the 2020 General Sires List behind only Gimmethegreenlight, a fine feat given that at the time, he had just three crops at the track!
Never out of the top five since, Master Of My Fate currently finds himself in third position behind Vercingetorix and Gimmethegreenlight.
It’s been yet another splendid season, for it seems not a week goes by where at least a number of his progeny visit the winner’s enclosure.
Boasting an overall strike rate of 67% winners to runners, no less than 14% of which are stakes performers.
This season alone, he has sired eight individual stakes winners headed by Atticus Finch, who became his sire’s fourth individual Gr1 winner with a smooth victory in the Betway Summer Cup.
The Alec Laird-trained gelding will take his chances in the Gr1 Hollywoodbets Durban July, six years after paternal half-brother Twist Of Fate finished third behind champions Do It Again and Rainbow Bridge.
Master Of My Fate will be two-handed in the July, for joining Atticus Finch in the line-up for the country’s premier race is Gr1 Daily News 2000 third Okavango.
Okavango – progressive son of the Master! (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Trained by Justin Snaith, he is a three-part brother in blood to dual Gr1 Summer Cup hero Master Sabina, who was unlucky not to make the final cut for the 2014 July yet won the “Consolation” July in a time almost two seconds faster than that recorded in the big race.
Master Of My Fate’s daughter Zarina also tasted Gr1 success at this iconic meeting when she stunned champions War Of Athena and Princess Calla in a humdinger finish to the 2021 Garden Province Stakes, to claim victory by the proverbial whisker.
Although Master Of My Fate will not have a runner in the prestigious mile race, he will be represented by a hot fancy in the Splashout Gr2 Golden Slipper, where all eyes will be on juvenile daughter Anotherdanceforme.
Anotherdanceforme runs in SplashOut Gr2 Golden Slipper(Pic – Pauline Herman)
She has made the journey from homebase Port Elizabeth and will put her perfect record on the line off an undefeated streak of four wins, the most recent of which a wide-margin victory in the Listed Dahlia Plate, where she led home Master Of My Fate colt King Prawn.
Greeff is blessed to have a particularly strong arsenal of fillies this season which includes yet another daughter of Master Of My Fate in Golden Palm, who became her trainer’s first Highveld stakes winner when she stunned her rivals in the Gr2 SA Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Nursery.
She subsequently showed that was no fluke with an imperious ten-length hatchet job in last month’s Listed Lady’s Slipper Stakes.
Needless to say, Master Of My Fate’s achievements augur well for his nine-strong draft at the forthcoming KwaZulu-Natal Yearling Sale, the majority of which boast stakes winning dams, notably Gr1 Cape Fillies Guineas victress Field Flower, who also produced Gr1 Sun Met runner-up and sire Last Winter.
