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There have been three WSB SA Triple Crown winners in history and four Wilgerbosdrift SA Triple Tiara winners. 

Remarkably three of the seven have been Oppenheimer family home-breds and three have been trained by Mike de Kock.

Gaynor Rupert’s Drakenstein Stud currently have two good chances of adding another home-bred to the list of Triple winners.

Their home-bred Safe Passage (Silvano) will attempt to give MIke de Kock a third Triple Crown to add to his one Triple Tiara.

Safe Passage is the favourite for Saturday’s Triple Crown second leg, the Grade 1 WSB SA Classic.

Drakenstein’s home-bred Rain In Holland by their late sire Duke Of Marmalade goes into the Grade 1 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Classic as favourite and with her Triple Tiara chances still alive. 

However, Drakenstein’s Racing manager Kevin Sommerville knows the ups and downs of racing all too well and is not getting ahead of himself.

He said, “I prefer talking after the races. But both horses are well in themselves and with a bit of luck could repeat their last wins. They should both be very competitive.”

Sommerville said whilst it was exciting to have two live Triple-chasing horses he added this  was what his and the other staff members of the stud’s jobs were all about.

“Having Grade 1 and classic winners is what we are trying to achieve as a premium stud farm.”   
 
The great Mike de Kock-trained Horse Chestnut was the first ever Triple Crown winner, achieving the feat in 1999.

He ran in the Oppenheimer’s famous black and yellow silks having been bred at their Kimberley-based Mauritzfontein Stud.

Coincidentally, Horse Chestnut later stood at Drakenstein Stud. 

Then in 2013 Mauritzfontein Stud’s home-bred Cherry On The Top (Tiger Ridge) carried the black and yellow silks to Triple Tiara glory for trainer Ormond Ferraris.

Ferraris was on hand to help trainer Paul Peter repeat the feat in 2020 with Summer Pudding (Silvano), who was officially jointly bred by Mauritzfontein and her sister Oppenheimer family-owned Wilgerbosdrift Stud. She officially raced for Mauritzfontein.

The first Triple Tiara winner was the De Kock-trained R1 million purchase Igugu (Galileo), who did it in 2011.

The last Triple Crown winner Malmoos (Captain Al) was also trained by De Kock and cost over R4 million at the sales. He achieved the feat last season.

However, the beauty of racing is the small owner also has a chance and the other two Triple winners are true rags to riches fairytales.

The Geoff Woodruff-trained Louis The King (Black Minnaloushe), Triple Crown winner in  2014, was famously bought in a sales car park for R60,000. 

Last season’s Triple Tiara winner, the Paul Matchett-trained War Of Athena (Act Of War), cost just R30,000 at the sales.

Picture; Duke Of Marmalade (Drakensteinstud.com).