Avontuur Thoroughbred Estate’s triple G1 winning sire Oratorio enjoyed a South African double this weekend, with Oratorio’s two winners including an eye catching first-timer in the form of Mary O.
The latter, a two-year-old filly bred by the Connemara Stud, stormed home to win on debut when victorious at Greyville on Saturday.

Under jockey Mark Khan, the Lezeanne Forbes trained Mary O stayed on smartly to score by a head, when victorious over 1200m on Saturday.

Mary O, who was produced by the Second Empire mare Mary Hinge, was a R300 000 buy from the 2018 National Two Year Old Sale.

The filly was the second of two South African weekend winners for Oratorio, with the latter also responsible for Friday winner Voices Of Light. Trained by Alan Greeff, and ridden on Friday by Greg Cheyne, 3yo Voices Of Light justified tote favouritism when he registered a half-length scove over 1200m at Fairview to register his third career victory.

Oratorio, whose useful daughter Snapscan ran fourth in Saturday’s Listed East Coast Cup, also made waves this weekend as a broodmare sire in Italy.

Already damsire of group winners Dolce Strega (G3 Athasi Stakes) and Paquirri (G3 Kindergarten Stakes), Oratorio is also the broodmare sire of Sunday’s G3 Premio Tudini winner Buonasera, a four-year-old daughter of Zebedee. Now a four time winner, Buonasera was capturing the first group win of her career.

The sire of 54 stakes winners (and counting), Oratorio has enjoyed an excellent season in 2018-2019 thus far, with his star performers including such graded stakes winners as Divine Odyssey, Mardi Gras and Van Halen.