Lance added his name to the list of successful stallion sons of the late great Jet Master, courtesy of juvenile daughter Quid Pro Quo’s dramatic last gasp victory in the Gr1 Allan Robertson Championship at Hollywoodbets Scottsville last Saturday.
The Barend Botes-trained filly entered the 1200m dash with cast-iron credentials, coming off two impressive wins over the course and distance, and without wishing to distract from the sensational Golden Horse Sprint winner Lucky Lad, she put up an equally impressive performance, erupting from a near impossible position to nab Rodeo Drive and Symphony In White on the line.
Quid Pro Quo (Smanga Khumalo, white cap) (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
The filly is one of just a handful of runners representing her sire, one of plenty of ‘forgotten’ sires, those who are afforded very little support in a cut-throat stallion market.
Who is Lance, many people will ask. Well, he is a horse who showed infinite promise before injury put paid to his racing career.
Trained by Sean Tarry, Lance made the transition to stakes winner in just his third start with an emphatic three-length drubbing of unbeaten favourite and subsequent Triple Crown winner Louis The King in the Listed Sea Cottage Stakes at Turffontein.
Highly talented Lance wins a feature under Anthony Delpech (Pic – Supplied)
Sadly, the colt broke down after just six starts, which left Tarry to reflect: “Such a tragedy, he was amazingly talented, at least as good as his Gr1 winning brother Liege, and perhaps even more naturally so.”
From the family of champion sprinter Rebel King, Lance is one of a trio of stakes winners out of Lyrical Linda, a smallish individual who defeated champions Jamaica and Overarching in the Gr1 Garden Province Stakes. The daughter of Jallad also produced Gr1 Summer Cup hero Liege to Dynasty, while Lance’s own brother Lockheed Jetstar won the Listed Thukela Handicap.
Given his pedigree and the fact that he was a stakes-winning son of arguably the best locally-bred stallion of modern times, Lance was afforded a stallion career and retired to Summerhill Stud but at such a low key level, that he was lucky to cover just two mares in each of his first two seasons!
Both first-crop foals are winners, the filly Voltron and the gelded Kuuma, who ended his juvenile campaign on a black type note when second to subsequent Gr1 winner Dyce in the Gr2 Umkhomazi Stakes.
Second-crop son Silver Tudor, an own brother to Voltron, has already won three for the Tarry stable.
Considering that the trio were bred from modest one-time winners, Lance clearly appears to upgrade his mares.
Quid Pro Quo, one of just six registered juveniles from her sire’s 2021 crop, is out of a mare who boasted more impressive credentials. Delightfull Diva is a five-time winning daughter of The Sheik.
Quid Pro Quo as a foal – what a racer she has turned out to be! (Pic – Supplied)
By the time she visited Lance, she had already produced Ruffian Stakes winner Daring Diva, who also ran third in the Gr2 SA Fillies Nursery.
That Quid Pro Quo was a half-sister to a stakes winner apparently made no impression on buyers when she went through the ring at last year’s KZN Yearling Sale and she was bought back by her owner for just R60 000. In hindsight, it was probably a blessing in disguise and Gerald Kalil has had the last laugh, given that his filly is now a Gr1 winner with earnings of over R831 000, to go along with a near perfect formline of three wins and two seconds from as many starts.
For the pedigree buffs out there, Quid Pro Quo is bred on similar lines as Jet Master’s champion Yorker and Gr1 winner Litle Miss Magic, both of whom were out of mares by Al Mufti (also sire of The Sheik).
Interesting too, that Jet Master’s sons Master Of My Fate and Skitt Skizzle have both sired stakes winners out of mares by Al Mufti’s son Captain Al.
As for Lance, he now stands at Leon Lotz’s Heuningfontein Stud in the Karoo.
Whether the achievements of the handful of early runners made an impression is a matter of conjecture, suffice to say support from breeders has improved to the extent that he covered all of 29 mares last year.
That’s still a trifling, but amongst those mares are Gr1-placed Vision To Kill; the dams of stakes winners Bureau Des Legende and In The Mood; as well as half-sisters to the Gr1 winners Carnadore and Love Struck, and to the stakes winners Twitter, Dark Moon Rising, Fakazi, Chariot Of Gold, Pacific Breeze, and Thanks John.
To be brutally honest, Lance will probably never overcome the lack of early support, yet, in Quid Pro Quo this underrated stallion has shown that with the right mare, he is quite capable of siring an above average athlete.
