Drakenstein Stud’s in-form Cartier Champion Duke Of Marmalade is showing great promise as a broodmare sire, and the five time G1 winning son of Danehill again made headlines as a broodmare sire on Sunday when his maternal grandson Keep On Fly won the G2 Derby Italiano (Italian Derby) at Capanelle racecourse.

A son of Rip Van Winkle, Keep On Fly made it win number two from just five starts when he won Sunday’s 136 Derby Italiano by a short neck from last year’s G2 Gran Criterium winner Mission Boy.
A debut second going 10 furlongs in Milan in November, Keep On Fly reappeared on Mar. 16 and was third, beaten 1 ½ lengths, over the same course and distance. He gave those conditions another try two weeks later when checking in second, and he at last got over the line in front when upped afurlong on Apr. 22.

The 2019 Derby Italiano winner was produced by the Duke Of Marmalade mare So Many Shots –whose six victories included the G3 Premio Mario Incisa. (So Many Shots joins the likes of Sound Of Freedom, Flower Party, Ming Zhi Cosmos and Quaduna as Italian group winners sired by Duke Of Marmalade).

Keep On Fly joins the likes of Antonia De Vega (G3 Prestige Stakes) and Chilean (G3 Prix La Force) as group winners produced by daughters of Duke Of Marmalade.

The latter, whose progeny include 39 individual stakes winners, made a very promising start to his stud career with Duke Of Marmalade’s first crop headed by the graded stakes winners Santa Clara and Temple Grafin, and his second crop by the very promising filly True To Life –who ran third in the recent G2 SA Fillies Nursery.