The winner of the weekend’s biggest feature, the R200,000 Grade 3 Sycamore Sprint, is out of a Captain Al mare and that allowed the latter to move ahead of Jet Master at the top of the national damsire championship log.
The Stuart Pettigrew-trained Alula’s Star was bred by Winterbach Stud and is out of Captain Al mare Solar Voyager, a six-time winner.
Captain Al, who won a single national champion sire title, was R158,050 ahead of Jet Master after Saturday’s racing.
However, at Hollywoodbets Scottsville yesterday, the winner of the R100,000 first race, the Mike Miller-trained African Folklore, and the
R100,000 seventh race, the Alyson Wright-trained Beyondtheboundary, are both out of Jet Master mares.
The gap was thus closed to a mere R13,050.
Seven-times champion sire Jet Master has been the country’s champion damsire for the last four seasons.
Captain Al was the runner up last year, taking over from Fort Wood who had been the runner up in the previous three seasons.
Western Winter was the last damsire to win the championship before Jet Master’s run started.
Interestingly, Alula’s Star is a reverse of a cross that had success, i.e Captain Al with Western Winter mares.
That cross produced the like of sprinters Carry On Alice and Erik The Red as well as Cape Guineas winner Tap O’Noth.
Alula’s Star is by Western Winter sire Red Ray out of a Captain Al mare.
