Ridgemont Highlands’ sensational young sire Rafeef made headlines at Turffontein on Saturday when his promising son Union Square ran out a convincing winner of Saturday’s G2 Jonsson Workwear Dingaans, run over 1600m on the Standside Track.
Runner up last season’s G2 Heineken SA Nursery, the Mike de Kock trained Union Square came into the Dingaans off a fourth place finish in the G3 Allied Steelrode Graham Beck Stakes, and he built up on the effort with a smart performance in Saturday’s 1600m contest for three-year-olds.
Under Randall Simons, Union Square hit the front someway from home and kept finding more in the closing stages to hold off stablemates Shoemaker and East Coast.
Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Union Square has now won twice from just six starts with the promise of plenty more to come.
Union Square, who is out of the Oasis Dream mare Square Dance, is the ninth stakes winner for Rafeef, South Africa’s Leading First Season Sire of 2020-2021 and Leading Second Season Sire the following season.
Union Square’s Dingaans win also made amends for his paternal half-brother Aragosta (third in Saturday’s G1 Betway Summer Cup) -who ran third in the 2021 World Sports Betting Dingaans.