Varsfontein Stud’s exciting young stallion Erik The Red is set to have his first runner on Saturday. Erik The Red’s two-year-old son Tenjiku is a runner in the South African Airways Maiden Juvenile Plate at Turffontein this weekend.
Erik The Red is the first of the new stallions to have his first crop runner.
Bred by Varsfontein Stud, the Alec Laird-trained Tenjiku is out of the mare Kawakami -whose sire Master Of My Fate is closely related to Erik The Red.
Erik The Red was a high-class and precocious galloper who won six of ten starts. The well-bred bay, who won from 1000-1200m, won five graded or listed races, with Erik The Red’s tally including a trio of graded triumphs.
He won the 2020 G3 Kepu Cape Of Good Hope Nursery (beating recent G3 Cape Mile winner Rascallion), 2020 G2 Epol Umkhomazi Stakes and 2020 G2 Cape Racing Sales Cape Merchants.
Erik The Red is one of 105 stakes winners for his late champion sire Captain Al, whose sire sons also include the sensational One World as well as proven G1 stallions Captain Of All and William Longsword.
Bred on the same Captain Al/Western Winter cross as G1 winners Carry On Alice and Tap O’ Noth, Erik The Red is one of five winners produced by the Western Winter mare Covenant.
The latter, also the dam of G1 Gold Medallion runner-up Varallo and the stakes-placed dam of G2 winner Cala Muretta, was a top-class performer whose seven career victories included the 2011 G1 Klawervlei Majorca Stakes and three other graded victories.
Bred on very similar lines to the Captain Al sired Triple Crown-winning sire Malmoos, Erik The Red hails from the immediate family of Varsfontein Stud’s bang-inform sire Master Of My Fate.