Akash Aucharuz steers Touch The Sky to a runaway Oaks Trial win(JC Photos)
A beautifully bred 3yo Jet Master filly bounced from nowhere into classic contention with a storming win in the R150 000 Listed Oaks Trial run at Turffontein on Saturday. Geoff Woodruff’s Touch The Sky relished her first shot at the 2000m at her fourth start to win like something very special.
A Vaal 1400m maiden winner at her penultimate start, the Varsfontein Stud owned Touch The Sky looked a picture in the preliminaries and came home powerfully to see many exotic tickets consigned to the bins.
After Bluebell Glade had led for a long way, Akash Aucharuz produced Touch The Sky at the 300m and she stormed down the middle at 14 to 1 to win going away by 3 lengths in a time of 125,11 secs.
The lesser fancied of the De Kock pair,the Oasis Dream filly Square Dance, ran on well enough for second.
Her partner Adhira faded out and finished seven lengths behind the winner.
St John Gray’s Barrack Babe stayed on for third.
Another feature win for the high riding Guv, Geoff Woodruff
A winner of 2 of 4 starts, Touch The Sky took her stake earnings to R146 875.
Touch The Sky was bred by Cheveley Stud and is by Jet Master out of the prolific winner producer Mystic Spring, a daughter of Royal Academy.
This is the family of Group performers, amongst others Secret Of Victoria and Rabiya.
Touch The Sky was sold on the Cape Premier Yearling Sale Book 1 for R1,1 million.
Her dam is one of the very best South Africa broodmares of recent times.
Her first foal by Jallad was the most crooked individual who didn’t score more than 2/10 by the inspection panel. He didn’t ever see a sale and ended up being the Dean Kannemeyer trained Rabiya who won the Daily News and the Cape Derby.
Unplaced on her sole racetrack appearance, Mystic Spring took a world class pedigree with her to stud.
Her sire, Breeders Cup Mile winner Royal Academy, was a champion, who produced no fewer than 167 stakes winners.
Royal Academy has done very well in South Africa, with the likes of Eyeofthetiger (Vodacom Durban July) and Express Way (Cape Guineas) both winning at the highest level.
The son of Nijinsky II also did very well as a broodmare sire, with his daughters to date having produced 116 stakes winners, including leading Australian sire Fastnet Rock, and classic winners Finsceal Bio, Frozen Power and Rule of Law.
Mystic Spring’s dam, Secret Sunday, was a full sister to Mystiko – who gave Michael Roberts his first British classic when winning the 1991 English 2000 Guineas.
All Is Secret a top class racer
While she may not have achieved much on the track, Mystic Spring more than made up for that at stud.
Three of her stakes winners Rabiya (Jallad), Secret of Victoria (Goldkeeper) and Spring Lilac (Joshua Dancer) were produced by different sires, with Rafiya a full sister to Rabiya.
Understandably, offspring of Mystic Spring have proved very popular in the sales ring.
Touch The Sky has a half sister by Dynasty (lot 468) on the forthcoming National Yearling Sale.
