Klawervlei Stud’s successful sire Count Dubois made headlines at Kenilworth on Sunday when his daughter Anime won the Listed Laisserfaire Stakes over 1100m in smart style.
Always handy, the Sean Veale ridden five-year-old stayed on gamely in the closing stages to provide her trainer Dennis Drier with a second consecutive win in the race, with Drier having saddled subsequent G1 winner Sommerlied to win the Laisserfaire in 2017.
In landing Sunday’s Listed sprint, Anime accounted for a high class field, with her beaten rivals including such graded stakes winners as Freedom Charter, Elusive Heart and Magical Wonderland, and she has now won or placed in 15 of her 19 outings for owners Mike Fullard and James Drew.
Sunday’s Listed win took Anime’s earnings to R378 425 and she is a 25th stakes winner for her former Equus Outstanding Sire.
The Ridgemont Stud bred Anime is not the first daughter of Count Dubois to win the Laisserfaire Stakes –his Comtesse Dubois won the race in 2012.
She is one of more than 40 stakes horses sired by Count Dubois, whose other notable progeny include such Equus Champions as Asylum Seeker, Edict Of Nantes (now racing in Hong Kong as Northern Superstar) and French Navy, and fellow G1 winners Zaitoon and Zeeno.
Other notable performers to have represented Count Dubois (who himself is from the same female line as the now Dubai based G1 Daily News 2000 hero Surcharge) include millionaire and sire Biarritz, and fellow graded winners Madame Dubois, Fairyinthewoods, State Crown, Social Order and Fair Rosalind (the latter is dam of Heritage 1200 Fillies & Mares Handicap winner Schippers).
A G1 winning son of Zafonic, Count Dubois is also now making headlines as a broodmare sire –with his daughters having produced the likes of Melliflora, Pinnacle Peak and hugely promising filly Arianos Shadow, while his champion daughter Asylum Seeker is responsible for recent Australian scorer Scarlet Dream.