Nothing boosts a stallion’s career like a Gr1 winner. That fortune befell champion Pomodoro when sophomore son Russian Rock defied his 100-1 odds to upstage his more fancied rivals in last weekend’s Cape Guineas.
The Dean Kannemeyer-trained grey joined Pomodoro’s first-crop daughter Return Flight as his sire’s second top level winner. Voted the champion juvenile filly of 2017-18 after closing out her juvenile campaign with victory in the Gr1 Thekwini Stakes, she went on to become her young sire’s first classic winner by completing the SA Fillies Classic/SA Oaks double.
When Pomodoro retired to Klawervlei Stud, he ticked all the boxes. He was, after all, a champion son of the great Jet Master and Golden Apple, a stakes winning daughter of ten times leading broodmare sire Northern Guest. In addition, he had shown the mark of a true champion, the ability to both sprint and stay.
Trained throughout his career by Sean Tarry, the bay won from a sprinting 1160m to the classic Derby distance of 2450m. Lest we forget, his sire displayed the same versatility during a glittering career, which saw him capture three of the country’s premier sprints (including a double in Scottsville’s Golden Spur), the Cape Argus Guineas, two renewals of the Queen’s Plate and the Nissan Challenge, all over a mile.
Unraced at two, Pomodoro capped an excellent sophomore season when he overcame the extreme outside draw to claim the Gr1 Vodacom Durban July, having previously shared the spoils in the Gr1 SA Derby. Four months after his July triumph, Chris van Niekerk’s homebred put up a performance that matched his July success when he set the Turffontein track alight in an 1160m dash. Outpaced early on, he unleashed an amazing turn of foot to defeat a bunch of pure sprinters at their own game.
Pomodoro wins the Gr1 Vodacom Durban July
Retired to Klawervlei Stud in 2014, Pomodoro hit the ground running in his second career and topped the leading freshman sires list at the expense of paternal half-brother Master Of My Fate.
Headed by champion Return Flight, that initial crop also included the stakes-placed juveniles Royal Italian and Cirillo.
The former showed his precocity by running third in the Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes before finishing second in the Storm Bird Stakes.
Cirillo gave notice of a bright future when defeated a bob of the head in both the Gr2 SA Nursery and Gr3 Protea Stakes. Having chased home Soqrat in the Gr1 H F Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut at three, he came into his own at four with an emphatic victory in the Gr2 Hawaii Stakes.
This season at five, he finished third in a three-way finish to the Gr1 Champions Cup and most recently gave both Belgarion and Rainbow Bridge plenty of cheek when a close-up third in the Gr2 Green Point Stakes.
Pomodoro built on his fine start with his second crop. Fleet-footed filly Golden Belle was a runaway winner of the Gr2 Camellia Stakes and Leopold proved his superiority in the Listed Secretariat Stakes. Putontheredlight failed by a neck in the Gr2 Durban Golden Horseshoe, Cornish Pomodoro and Westlife both placed at Gr3 level, while Bound By Duty picked up black type in Listed stakes company.
Russian Rock wins the Cape Guineas in style. (Pic- Chase Liebenberg)
Russian Rock hails from Pomodoro’s third crop, as does the talented filly Caralluma. An impressive four-length debut winner, she next won the Listed Devon Air Stakes by a similar margin before finishing a close-up second in the Gr2 Golden Slipper. On Saturday, Indlamu set the tone for his paternal half-brother’s classic success when beaten under a length for third in the Listed Secretariat Stakes at Turffontein.
Remarkably, the majority of Pomodoro’s stakes performers have been campaigned by his former owner Chris van Niekerk, who has placed enormous faith in his champion both as a breeder and a buyer and initially raced the majority of the horse’s offspring.
No stranger to spending big at the sales, it took just R20 000 to acquire Return Flight as a yearling, a snip considering she earned almost R2.3-million on the track. Cirillo, who currently boasts a bankroll of more than R5,3-million, cost him a trifle more at R60 000.
Ironically, one that did get away was Saturday’s Cape Guineas winner, who was snapped up by Kannemeyer on the insistence of part-owner Marsh Shirtliff!
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