The R500 000 TAB Gr2 Senor Santa Stakes at Turffontein on Saturday produced a fairer sex 1-2 for Ridgemont’s outstanding Redoute’s Choice stallion Rafeef, with both the top two racing in the famous Wernars silks.
Chasing Happiness (Smanga Khumalo) does her sire proud with a second stakes success (Pic – JC Photos)
Once popularly labelled ‘the thunder from Down Under’, the stature of Ridgemont’s super sire Rafeef, a champion, by a champion, out of a champion, continues to grow with every passing big raceday.
His legendary sire Redoute’s Choice is no stranger to producing top-class stallion sons, having also produced the likes of four times Australian Champion Sire Snitzel, the hugely successful Not A Single Doubt, and Golden Slipper winning and producing sire, Stratum.
The Rafeef fairytale received more endorsement on the Championships Finale when the 4yo Chasing Happiness, a filly with a ‘high cruising speed’ in the words of a delighted Smanga Khumalo, ran her eight opponents off their feet to register her second stakes success.
Starting at 10-1, Chasing Happiness looked value at the price and delivered a 1,70 length victory over the year older Mrs Browning (50-1) in a time of 67,43 secs for the 1160m.
The Rafeef exacta paid R303,40.
The first fancied runner home, the grey Truth (13-10) maintained his consistent formline, and stayed on for third, with Pistol Pete (9-2) capping the quartet.
Raced by the Wernars family, the Ridgemont-bred winner was a R200 000 National Yearling Sale buy and took her stakes total to R789 875 with her sixth win and 5 places from 14 starts
The winner is out of the high-class three-time winner Kalami (Daylami), whose sire also ranks as the damsire of prominent Australian sire and champion Pierro and St Leger winning sire Logician, among others.
In a Ripley’s believe it or not moment, we hear that Chasing Happiness was apparently named after her trainer, Johan Janse van Vuuren.
