Mauritzfontein’s red hot resident sire Ideal World once again featured prominently this weekend, with his champion daughter Smart Call landing her first British success on Friday.
The six-year-old Mauritzfontein bred and owned Smart Call briefly lacked for room one furlong out in the G3 Stobart Energy Hoppings Fillies’ Stakes at Newcastle, but kept going strongly under jockey Jim Crowley to register a 1.75 length win (as favourite) in Friday night’s 2000 metre contest.
The Hoppings Fillies’ Stakes was run for a first time as a G3 contest on Friday.
The bay had previously finished third, for a second year running, in the G2 Betfred Middleton Stakes at York.
Smart Call, who is out of the Horse Chestnut mare Good Judgement, is trained by Sir Michael Stoute and she has now won or placed in 16 of her 25 outings.
Friday night was Smart Call’s fifth group/graded race success.
South Africa’s Equus Champion Older Filly/Mare and Champion Middle Distance Horse of 2015-2016, Smart Call had won seven times in South Africa, with her trio of G1 victories including the 2016 G1 J&B Met and the 2016 G1 Maine Chance Farms Paddock Stakes.
She is one of five stakes winners in 2018 for Ideal World thus far, with the stallion’s other notable winners including unbeaten G3 Winter Guineas/Winter Classic hero Rainbow Bridge, G3 Strelitzia Stakes heroine Inverroche and Kenilworth Fillies Nursery winner Coral Bay.
Ideal World, whose seven lots on this week’s KZN Yearling Sale include a full brother to Inverroche (Lot 252), could well be on course for further big race success in the weeks to come.
Coral Bay is one of two likely runners for her sire in the postponed Listed Irridescence Stakes, with impressive debut winner Helen’s Ideal being another potential Irridescence starter for Ideal World. The latter is also set to be represented by a pair of runners in Saturday’s G3 DSTV Gold Vase, in Hero Quest and Sheet Weaver, while Ideal World’s Inverroche goes for the KZN Yearling Sale Million on the same day and stakes winning Ideal World daughter Luna Child lines up in Saturday’s Listed Greyville Convention Centre Handicap.