The Jet Master legend continues to soar. The UK Racing Post has recently placed South Africa’s homegrown hero in the shadow of the immortal Galileo in a recent publication of the top sires of worldwide Group One races.
The list measures the winners and runners of sires, and the percentage of their progeny that achieve Group victories and their total amount of prize money per win. Jet Master’s remarkable 4-13 (31%) winner/runner ratio, means that he is ranks within a heartbeat of the great Galileo’s 8-25 (32%).
Described as one of South Africa’s greatest sires of all-time, with the statistics to prove it, his progeny produced R16,571,611 in stakes earnings alone this past season, and he was also leading South African sire for six consecutive years.
His offspring read like the whose who of equine royalty.
The mighty Group One-winning multiple Horse of the Year, Pocket Power; Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint (Gr.1) hero, JJ The Jet Plane; Balanchine Stakes (Gr.2) heroine, River Jetez; the brilliant Team Valor owned Group One winning mare, Ebony Flyer; this year’s Vodacom Durban July winner Pomodoro, and the multiple Group winners Mythical Flight and Stratos. And the story is far from an ending.
Jet Master was sired by the unfashionable son of the great Northern Dancer, Rakeen, and daughter of the American stallion Rollins, Jet Lightning.
Jet Master was born on the birth of the new democracy in South Africa. History shows 1994 to be a momentous year for every citizen of this country. Hugh & Margaret Jonsson, on whose farm just outside of Mooi River in Kwa Zulu Natal, where he was born, could not have known how that day would change the course of our racing history and fortune.
Pat Devine first set eyes on the ordinary fellow at the now defunct Natal Mare and Weanling Sale. It is well documented that she begged her husband Henry to buy him.
His now famous words were “Fine, but no more than ten thousand!”.
Fate works in strange ways. He was knocked down to the Devines and the story of a legend took wings.
Twice named SA Horse Of the Year, Jet Master went on to an astonishing racing career with 24 starts producing 17 wins, 8 of which were Gr 1 victories, including twice winning the Gr1 Queen’s Plate .
To date his progeny have won 24 Grade One races and Jet Master has had 42 Stakes Winners in total.
Jet Master has two sons at stud here in South Africa.
Royal Air Force, a winner of four, including the Greyville 1900 (Gr2) at four, stands at Sorrento Stud in the Cape.
Ravishing stands in KZN at Summerhill Stud. A Gr1 winner of the SA Derby, Ravishing, like Royal Air Force is a smashing looker.
– extract www.kznbreeders.co.za