Drakenstein Stud sire, and former Cartier Champion, Duke Of Marmalade was represented by his first winner from his first South African born crop of foals at Kenilworth on Saturday.
Duke Of Marmalade two-year-old filly Santa Clara stamped herself a filly to follow when running out a comprehensive winner of a maiden juvenile plate over 1200m.
Bred by Maine Chance Farms, the Candice Bass-Robinson trained filly, who had been second on debut, ran on smartly to record a three parts of a length win over the well bred first-timer Mixed Signals.
Santa Clara, steered to victory by Aldo Domeyer, had been a R1 000 000 purchase from the 2017 Cape Premier Yearling Sale. The filly has a full-sister on offer at the 2018 Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale in the form of Sanskrift (Lot 35).
Her sire Duke Of Marmalade, Cartier Champion Older Male in 2008, has already been represented by five first crop runners (from just a handful of runners) to have won or placed-including Sweet Preserve who was second in open company earlier in the week.
However, the five time G1 winner is already a proven sire success story on the international stage. To date, Duke Of Marmalade has over 50 stakes horses to his credit, with his offspring having banked more than $31 000 000 in earnings.
His most notable runners include such G1 winners as Big Orange, Star Of Seville, Simple Verse, Sound Of Freedom and Nutan, and Duke Of Marmalade has been represented by classic winners in all of Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
The champion is also broodmare sire of hugely promising 3yo Chilean (winner of the G3 Prix La Force) and the promising juvenile Jackstar
Duke Of Marmalade has a stallion’s pedigree second to none. Not only is the champion a son of the great sire, and sire of sires, Danehill, but he hails from the same family as sire standouts A P Indy, Raja Baba, Summer Squall, Lemon Drop Kid and Al Mufti.
The Drakenstein sire has another cracking draft on offer at this week’s Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale. Duke Of Marmalade’s 24 strong draft includes a half-sister to G1 SA Nursery winner Arabian Beat (Lot 92), a colt out of G1 Woolavington 2000 winner Imperious Star (Lot 170), a half-brother to Cape Guineas second White River (Lot 175), a colt out of G3 winner Milden Magic (Lot 203) and a half-brother to Triple Tiara hope Takingthepeace (Lot 467).