Varsfontein Stud’s red hot sire Gimmethegreenlight was back in the headlines this week when his son Track Commander topped the CTS Ready To Run Sale, held at Durbanville racecourse on Friday.
Consigned by Soetendal Estate (Agent), Track Commander (Lot 160) was knocked down to trainer Sean Tarry for R2.4 million.
Track Commander is the most expensive lot sold off the Ready To Run Sale since 2013.
His G1 L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate winning sire Gimmethegreenlight (South Africa’s Leading First Crop Sire of 2015-2016) has had a magnificent year in 2019, and has enjoyed a tremendous run of success over the past few weeks, with his G1 winning son Yulong Prince capturing the Listed Furphy Plate at Flemington recently, multiple graded stakes winning son, and millionaire, Barahin winning the G2 Peermont Emperors Palace Charity Mile and daughter Third Runway lifting the G2 Western Cape Fillies Championship.
At the time of writing, Gimmethegreenlight ranks as the Leading Active Sire in South Africa by earnings for 2019-2020, with his progeny having already banked in excess of R3.7 million in this country this season.
Gimmethegreenlight’s outstanding sire More Than Ready was himself in the news this week, when the evergreen son of Southern Halo was responsible for his 200th individual stakes winner. The star sire reached that landmark when his son Sacred Empire captured the Coronation Cup at Perak recently.
More Than Ready sits fourth on the all-time list for stakes-winning sires. Danehill (347) heads that table followed by Galileo (312), Sadler’s Wells (294), More Than Ready (200) and Danzig (198).
It’s an altogether different pecking order for individual winners. More Than Ready (1849) and counting) is a mile in front of any other stallion in history with Danehill next best on 1623.