A champion on the track and now a champion in the paddocks, Beach Beauty is living proof that high-class racemares do make top producers, following the victory of three-year-old daughter Beach Bomb in the Gr1 World Sports Betting Cape Fillies Guineas.
Blessed with the same trademark turn of foot as her illustrious dam, the Lancaster Bomber filly unleashed an explosive stretch run to join the ranks of Drakenstein-bred Gr1 winners.
The magnificent Beach Beauty in action at the same venue in 2012 (Pic – Supplied)
Beach Beauty can justifiably be considered a gift that keeps on giving. She has a 100% strike rate with her first five foals, four of which are stakes performers.
On the track, the diminutive mare enjoyed a stellar career under the expert tutelage of now retired trainer Dennis Drier and maintained her brilliant form up to age six, winning 17 races. They don’t make them like that anymore, more’s the pity.
When she eventually bowed out of racing, this Grande Dame of South African racing arrived at Drakenstein as a five-time Gr1 winner of the Majorca Stakes, Garden Province (twice) and Cape Paddock Stakes (twice).
She started her broodmare career with a bang when her first foal, the Trippi colt Wild Coast, claimed the Gr2 World Sports Betting Guineas at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
Next came the Duke Of Marmalade colt Rex Union, who amazingly overcame a heart problem and made his presence felt in the staying ranks with placed efforts in the Gr3 Gold Cup and Gr3 Gold Vase.
With her third foal, Beach Beauty at last presented Drakenstein with a coveted first filly. Named Amanzimtoti, this full sister to Wild Coast earned black type with a comprehensive victory in the Gr2 Western Cape Fillies Championship.
Aldo Domeyer enjoys the post-race celebration with the Bass Racing staff and WSB Cape Fillies Guineas winner Beach Bomb
(Pic – Chase Liebenberg)
Beach Bomb is her fifth foal and was preceded by the Silvano colt Narina Trogon, who looked another fine prospect when he won first time out, but sad to say, has failed to build on that.
Beach Beauty’s dam line was founded by one of the pre-eminent breeders of the sixties, Jim Armitage of Rathvale Stud.
Home to the successful stallions Pent House II and Kirsch Flambee, the Standerton farm was also birthplace of such titans of the turf as Home Guard and Gatecrasher.
In fact, Beach Beauty’s third dam Free Pass, is a daughter of Home Guard out of an unraced daughter of Kirsch Flambee.
A champion on the track, this son of Pent House II ripped through his first eleven starts unbeaten. Successful in the SA Nursery (by 7.50 lengths), Benoni Guineas (by 5 lengths), SA Derby and SA Guineas, he tasted defeat for the first time when second to Naval Escort in the 1969 Durban July.
Free Pass retired to stud a four-time winner, but most importantly, had finished second in the Gr3 Newmarket Fillies Plate and third in the then Gr1 SA Oaks.
She produced just four foals, but these included Easter Handicap second Exeat and the Hobnob filly Leisure, who clearly inherited her sire’s stamina by finishing second in the J&B Reserve Stayers. Mated to the Mr Prospector horse Capture Him on several occasions, Leisure produced Gr1-placed Affair and stakes-placed Custody, as well as Beach Beauty’s dam Sun Coast.
James Armitage of Sandown Stud, the grandson of Jim Armitage recalls: “Sun Coast was bred by my uncle, the late Trevor Armitage, who I think sold her as a yearling. A couple of years later, I noticed she was being offered at auction and was in foal to Dynasty. I said to him, now’s your chance to get one of your mares back. I think he paid R30,000 for her and that foal was Beach Beauty!”
Sadly, despite all efforts, Sun Coast never produced another registered foal and it’s safe to say that her daughter has revived a female line which wasa in danger of fading into obscurity and furthermore, has cemented her place amongst Drakenstein’s leading broodmares, with Beach Bomb as its latest standout performer.
Beach Beauty was one of a throng of high-class mares to visit Jet Dark this year and is already well in foal. Her legacy is sure to mushroom, for not only does she have two fillies, a Gimmethegreenlight juvenile and a Vercingetorix yearling, waiting in the wings, her Gr2 winning daughter Amanzimtoti has joined her dam at Drakenstein and has a What A Winter filly foal at her side.
