Antonius Pius, First winner in SA
Highlands Stud’s Danzig stallion Antonius Pius registered his first SA winner at Fairview on Friday when the speedy Yoshie won the 800m Maiden Juvenile Plate for fillies.
Trained by Alan Greeff, Yoshie showed outstanding pace and great maturity under Charles Ndhlovu to win by 1,25 lengths in a time of 44,44 secs.
In so doing , and admittedly assisted by a tailwind, she smashed the existing course record held by Al Karama of 45,09 secs. Yoshie beat her more fancied stablemate Winter Fantasy, with another first-timer in Royal Fantasy running into third.
Yoshie is a good-looking bay filly bred and raced by Ian and Nina Robertson’s Milkwood Stud and is out of their top racemare Blushing Fairy. The eight-time winning daughter of Jallad won from 800 to 1600m and has produced four other winners from varying stallions.
Antonius Pius is a son of Danzig out of the unbeaten Pursuit Of Love mare and Gr1 Yorkshire Oaks winner, Catchascatchcan. The handsome impressive specimen cost $ 1 500 000 as a yearling and made an early impact winning the Gr2 Railway Stakes.
As a 3yo he developed into a leading miler and achieved a Timeform rating of 123.
Antonius Pius was retired to stud in Australia in 2005, then moved to Ireland in 2006,before settling in South Africa in 2009.
The Antonius Pius offspring have caught the market’s attention with the looks to match the blood. His yearlings sold from R180 000 to R300 000 in 2012.
Antonius Pius stands at Highlands in Robertson for a fee of R15 000
