Lammerskraal’s red hot sire Visionaire enjoyed a weekend to remember, with his progeny shining on the racetrack and taking home KZN award honours.

For a second year in a row, a Visionaire gelding won the G2 Merchants –with the Summerhill Stud bred Africa Rising landing Saturday’s G2 The Goldrush Derby Run Merchants at Turffontein on Saturday.
One of six winners on the day for trainer Sean Tarry, the brilliant five-year-old defied a tardy start and rough passage to score a facile, and decisive, 1.4 length win in the 1160m sprint.

Africa Rising, a horse with a superb turn of foot which seen to fine advantage on Saturday, has now won seven times, with his previous victories including the 2017 G3 Byerley Turk.

A R625 000 buy from the 2015 CTS Johannesburg Ready To Run Sale, the handsome chestnut took his earnings to R1 385 938 with his G2 victory this weekend.

The 2017 G2 Merchants had been won by Visionaire son The Thinker.

Africa Rising’s G1 winning sire Visionaire also made headlines at Saturday night’s KZN Breeders Awards, which saw Visionaire’s brilliant daughter Takingthepeace take home three awards namely Horse Of The Year, Champion 3YO Filly and Champion Middle Distance Horse. The brilliant filly has won six of her 14 outings thus far with her wins including the G1 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Classic, G2 Wilgerbosdrift Gauteng Fillies Guineas and G3 Victory Moon Stakes.

To date, Takingthepeace has earned over R1.7 million in stakes.

Her sire Visionaire, South Africa’s Leading First Crop Sire of 2014-2015 and Leading Second Crop Sire of 2015-2016, is also the sire of Saturday’s Listed G-Bets Stakes Gallop Secretariat Stakes third place finisher Blonde Vision and Wemibono –who won for a second time on Friday.

The son of Grand Slam has three lots on January’s Cape Premier Yearling Sale.