Nothing provides better publicity for a stallion than to sire a stakes winner.
For Capetown Noir the stars aligned not once, but twice this past weekend, as the champion miler celebrated a stakes double in the space of just 24 hours.
The Piemonte Stud-based son of Western Winter first struck with three-year-old son Jaeger Moon, who provided his sire with a classic success in the Listed East Cape Guineas at Fairview.
Capetown Noir stakes winner Jaeger Moon on far side (Pic – Pauline Herman)
The Gavin Smith-trained colt has not looked back since cracking his maiden on the polytrack and came into the mile event with a five-win streak in tow.
Considering that all his victories had been on that surface, there were doubts as to whether he could pull off another win on the grass, in addition to which he was facing the usual strong contingent of Cape Town visitors hoping to cash in on some black type.
No worries, though, the three-year-old rose to the occasion and took control of the race from the jump. Briefly headed in the straight by Glen Kotzen’s Oratorio colt Northern Song, he showed true grit and fought back tenaciously to score for the sixth time in succession.
The very next day, Capetown Noir again hit the headlines when juvenile daughter Under Your Spell became his first Graded stakes winner with a dominant score in Turffontein’s Gr3 Protea Stakes.
Capetown Noir stakes winner Under Your Spell (Pic – JC Photos)
On the strength of her impressive victory in last month’s Listed Ruffian Stakes, Sean Tarry’s charge started a warm favourite to make it a stakes double and duly obliged when she blitzed home, leaving her rivals trailing by a handsome three lengths.
Summerhill Stud can claim the honours for having bred both Jaeger Moon and Under Your Spell.
Jaeger Moon hails from his sire’s second crop and is out of the five-time winner Maritime Mist, dam also of the Await The Dawn stayer Before Noon, a shorthead loser of last season’s Gr3 Gold Vase.
A grandaughter of Lammerskraal Stud’s Broodmare of the Year Fashing, Maritime Mist is by underutilised Parade Leader, who is quietly making a name for himself as a sire of broodmares.
As a matter of fact, he is also the damsire of Western Winter’s Gr3 Cape of Good Hope Nursery winner and Gr1 Cape Guineas third Kingvoldt and of the stakes winner and Gr1 Mercury Sprint third Fabian, who is by Western Winter’s son What A Winter.
Even more significant, Parade Leader is a son of outstanding racer and stallion Kingmambo, the broodmare sire of Under Your Spell.
She was produced by his Irish-bred daughter Deceptive Charm, who never raced, but has proven herself a more than capable broodmare. In addition to Under Your Spell, she is also the dam of Kahal’s talented daughter Witchcraft, a dual winner of the Gr3 Track and Ball Oaks, and of the Gr3-placed Visionaire gelding In Cahoots.
Capetown Noir wins the Gr1 Cape Guineas
Following a glittering career which saw him named the Champion Miler of 2014, Capetown Noir took up stallion duties at Summerhill Stud in 2015.
Rated by his trainer Dean Kannemeyer as “the best miler I have trained, a magnificent mover with character and a terrific temperament,” he made a more than respectable start with seven first-crop winners, amongst which the stakes-placed fillies Brandina and Scarborough Fair.
Capetown Noir stakes winner Bohica (Pic – JC Photos)
That crop also includes his first black-type winner Bohica, who has emerged as a sprinter of note this season. Successful in the Listed Spring Spree Stakes, the four-year-old most recently looked assured of victory in the Gr2 Senor Santa Stakes until nabbed on the line by Vars Vicky.
Instant success is non-negotiable in a tough industry and having started the current season with no stakes winners amongst his first two crops to hit the track, it came as no surprise that Capetown Noir was soon looking for a new home when Summerhill changed hands in 2020.
In hindsight, that now seems a somewhat premature move when one considers that since his departure, the handsome bay has redeemed himself as the sire of a stakes winner in each of his first crops.
Click on the image below for more
