Sandown Stud have produced a real star in the form of the Adam Marcus trained Brave Move.
The latter made it five wins on the trot when scoring a facile two and a quarter length win in the Listed Highlands Stud Ladies Mile at Kenilworth on Saturday, accounting for Listed Olympic Duel Stakes winner Call To Account and G1 Woolavington 2000 winner Lady Of The House in the process.
The progressive four-year-old Brave Move, who has won six of ten outings, will now be aimed at the G3 Final Fling Stakes at the end of the month.
A bargain R100 000 buy (to date she has earned more than four times her purchase price!) from the 2015 National Two Year Old Sale, Brave Move is a daughter of Horse Chestnut and the Qui Danzig mare Brave Bid.
The filly, who had earlier in the season provided her trainer with the 100th win of his career, has earned a cheque in each of her ten outings thus far. Said to have a lovely temperament, Brave Move races for the Brave Bid Syndicate who race the filly in partnership with the trainer’s father Basil.
Brave Move is a daughter of deceased South African legend Horse Chestnut, South Africa’s Horse Of The Year, Equus Champion 3YO Colt and Champion Male Stayer of 1998. The son of champion sire Fort Wood won nine of ten outings, including the 1999 G1 J&B Met, which Horse Chestnut won by eight and a half lengths.
Winner of the G3 Broward Handicap, by five and a half lengths, on his only US outing, Horse Chestnut went on to make his mark in a brief career while standing in Kentucky. His stream of US stakes winners included G1 Garden City Hcp winner Lucifer’s Stone, and the graded stakes winners Duveen, Spanish Chestnut, and Smart Enough.
Horse Chestnut, who stood at Drakenstein Stud prior to his death in 2015, has also become a highly successful broodmare sire, with his daughters having already bred such G1 winners as Cannock Chase, Suggestive Boy, Zipessa and SA champion and Met winner Smart Call.
Repatriated to South Africa, Horse Chestnut quickly made his mark on the local turf, with his top runners including G1 Golden Slipper winner Chestnuts N Pearls, and the graded stakes winners Banbury, Chestnut’s Rocket and Joan Ranger –and Brave Move looks more than capable of providing her deceased sire with yet another graded win before too long!
The filly is from Horse Chestnut’s third last crop, which also includes G2 Betting World 1900 runner up and July contender Tilbury Fort – also a Sandown Stud graduate
Brave Move, a first stakes winner for her dam, is out of the 3 time winning Qui Danzig mare Brave Bid, a daughter of the G3 MOTA Champion Stakes winner Bold Bidder. The latter, a daughter of Sandown’s late, stalwart sire Goldkeeper, was a full or ¾ sister to such high class performers as G3 Lebelo Sprint winner Gold Pick, Zimbabwean champion Dash Along and Champagne Stakes winner On Option.
This is an old, very successful Armitage family but Bold Bidder has never managed to produce a horse equal to her in ability (her Var son Bid For Speed was said to have been very smart but was never able to reproduce his homework at the track.)
However, her granddaughter Brave Move has clearly inherited her share of the family talent.
Brave Bid, who aborted her most recent foal, had a yearling filly this season by July winning champion Greys Inn, and also has a weanling filly by successful sire Philanthropist.