Make It Snappy leads the charge in Saturday’s WSB Gr1 Cape Fillies Guineas (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Blood will out. Dynasty filly Make It Snappy lived up to her classic pedigree with a commanding, all the way victory in last weekend’s Gr1 World Sports Betting Cape Fillies Guineas, in what was just her fourth start.
In the process, she became a landmark first Gr1 winner for both the Hollywood Syndicate and jockey Luyolo Mxothwa.
Bred at Ridgemont Highlands, Make It Snappy joined Just Sensual and Front And Centre as the third Cape Fillies Guineas winner for the farm’s late supreme stallion Dynasty, who for good measure, also featured as the broodmare sire of runner-up Ciao Bella.
Considering that Make It Snappy is a member of his final crop, the former Horse of the Year is certainly going out with a bang!
Mick Goss started the ball rolling 34 years ago
Make It Snappy’s roots trace back to 1988, when former Summerhill supremo Mick Goss imported the ten-year-old French mare Laughing Music.
Purchased at the dispersal sale of horses owned by American oil billionaire and leading owner/breeder Nelson Bunker Hunt, this once-raced daughter of Luthier was already the dam of two stakes performers when she arrived at Summerhill.
When mated to resident stallion Northern Guest, she duly produced a filly named Nordic Air and as Mick recalls: “We sent her to Mike Azzie, but she never won. She was very fast and placed before going wrong.”
Returned to her birthplace, Nordic Air became the dam of seven winners, amongst which the Jallad filly Icy Air.
Mick elaborates: “As she was a December foal, we didn’t sell her at the Nationals. We kept her for the Ready To Run Sale where she was bought by the Alexanders.”
Icy Air proved a veritable racing machine, so much so that she was named the Champion Classic Female in a stellar three-year-old season which yielded Gr2 victories in the SA Oaks and Gold Circle Oaks, the SA Fillies Classic and Woolavington Stakes (both now Gr1’s). That’s no mean feat, considering she dented the reputations of subsequent Gr1 winners Jamaica, Night Diva, and Battle Maiden.
Icy Air – Granddam of Saturday’s Gr1 winner, Make It Snappy
She trained on to win nine races and had the distinction of finishing second in the Gr1 J&B Met when beaten half a length by Sean Tarry-trained Alastor, with Horse of the Year Winter Solstice a similar margin back in third.
Acquired by the late Mike Rattray, Icy Air’s efforts on the track were matched by her performance as a broodmare. She did sterling duty for Lammerskraal Stud and never missed a beat, producing no less than twelve foals in as many years. Remarkably, six of her nine winners earned black type, two of which were stakes winners, and she can also lay claim to producing a Gr1 winner in Champion Sprinter Russet Air.
He was the result of Icy Air’s mating to champion What A Winter in his second season, the next best option to his own sire Western Winter, who had died a year before.
As Lammerskraal’s former manager Sally Bruss recalled: “Russet Air had the worst front legs you could ever imagine. Brian Finch bought him off the farm and everybody thought he was crazy.”
Russet Air – top notch sprinter despite his legs (Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Despite his crooked legs, the gelding could run and earned himself an Equus award with victories in both the Gr1 Cape Flying Championship and Gr2 Cape Merchants.
As for Western Winter, he was a regular consort to Icy Air, two such unions resulting in the stakes-placed duo Izora and Icy Winter Air, who would become the dam of Make It Snappy.
A ‘deep, athletic’ filly, Icy Winter Air was sold as a yearling, and she duly joined the Joey Ramsden stable.
While she only raced five times for the partnership of Kathy Finch and Belinda Kieswetter, she retired to stud a winner, with the added bonus of a third place in the Gr2 SA Fillies Nursery behind her name.
Icy Winter Air’s excellent start in the paddocks has eclipsed her efforts on the track, in addition to which she has emulated her dam as a Gr1 producer, and with just her second foal!
Icy Winter Air – she’s doing things right
Her first foal, the Duke Of Marmalade filly Nippy Sweetie, scored five times and is back at Ridgemont Highlands, safely in foal to Canford Cliffs. The champion miler is also sire of Icy Winter Air’s juvenile filly, and a yearling colt.
Ridgemont Highlands manager Craig Carey confirmed she has a ‘very smart’ Gimmethegreenlight filly at foot and has again been covered by the Varsfontein champion.
Needless to say, the sky looks the limit for her seriously talented Gr1 winning Make It Snappy, who has come a long way since losing her maiden tag just two months ago and has now won three in a row.
Proud Hollywood Syndicate racing manager Anthony Delpech remarked: “We haven’t decided what’s next for her, she’s currently enjoying life in the paddock.”
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