The now pensioned Silvano recently achieved a notable feat when his daughter Keep On Dancing captured the Listed KRA East Coast Cup at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
In landing that Listed feature, Keep On Dancing became the 100th individual stakes winner for her multiple champion sire Silvano.
Keep On Dancing winning the Listed East Coast Handicap- 100th stakes winner for Silvano
(Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Out of the remarkable broodmare First Arrival, Keep On Dancing is bred on the same Silvano/Northern Guest cross as July winner Power King, Gr2 winner Arion, and Oaks Trial winner Inaninstant.
Silvano has proven remarkably consistent. His first three South African crops yielded seven stakes winners apiece, with flagbearers from the Lomitas son’s first crop headed by dual Gr1 winning Equus Champion Kings Gambit.
Silvano’s second and third local crops yielded champion Aslan and Met winner Martial Eagle, and Bold Silvano – the first of four July winners for Silvano thus far – as well as Cape Derby hero Bravura, and Summer Cup winning filly Flirtation.
While his runners have not enjoyed such dominance this season as they have previously, Silvano runners have still captured all of the Gr1 World Sports Betting Gauteng Summer Cup, Gr1 HSH Princess Charlene Empress Club Stakes, Gr2 Colorado King Stakes, and Gr 3 Starling Stakes.
Silvano runners finished first and third in this season’s Summer Cup – a race won previously by the stallion’s offspring Aslan, Flirtation and Zillzaal.
Perhaps one of Silvano’s most remarkable achievements in South Africa was siring the 1-2-3 finishers – Power King, Punta Arenas, Tellina – in the Gr1 Vodacom Durban July of 2015. Remarkably, Silvano went close to achieving a similar feature in the 2017 July where his progeny Marinaresco, Al Sahem and Nightingale ran 1-2-5 respectively.
He was also responsible for the 1-3 finishers in the 2019 Gr1 Summer Cup, the 1-3 finishers in the 2017 Gr2 SA Oaks, 1-3-4 finishers in the Gr1 Summer Cup, and the first two home in the 2017 Gr2 Betting World Gauteng Guineas.
Silvano enjoyed success with daughters of a number of stallions, notably Al Mufti, Fort Wood, National Assembly and Jet Master, while his success with mares from the Blushing Groom male line is also a striking point in the son of Lomitas’ lasting success in South Africa.
Monty Roberts visiting Silvano in 2016 (Pic- Jeremy Nelson)
Five times champion sire in South Africa, Silvano’s legacy in this country looks set to live on – both through a number of his broodmare daughters and through his hugely promising sire son Vercingetorix.
Stud plans for Silvano’s champion son Hawwaam remain unknown, but it is to be hoped that the half-brother to Gr1 winners Golden Ducat and Rainbow Bridge returns to South Africa.
Silvano’s full-sister Shina is the dam of young Cape sire Horizon – a son of Dynasty, whose young sire sons are making quite a name for themselves.
On Saturday at Kenilworth, Marina became Silvano’s 101st stakes winner when she won the Stormsvlei Stakes in impressive style.
