Lucky Lad is out on his own in the Gr 1 Gold Medallion and remains uinbeaten (Chase Liebenberg).

It is a dangerous game to start labelling horses too early, especially as two-year-olds, because most future superstars only come out as late two-year-olds or as three-year-olds.

An example can be seen from last season when Cousin Casey drew high accolades, deservedly, but he was soon knocked off his perch this season by Charles Dickens and is now also behind See It Again in the pecking order.

Lucky Lad is a Varsfontein-bred colt by Gimmethegreenlight, a former champion stallion who leads the national sires’ championship this season.

The colt appeared at last year’s BSA National Yearling Sale as Rudolph The Founder and was knocked down to Antony Beck for R850,000.

His dam Imperial State is by stamina influence Caesour and she won twice over 1600m and was second in a Listed event over 1800m. 

Imperial State is a half-sister to Jet Master dual Listed winner State Coach, who is the dam of Gr 2 Betting World Derby winner Silvano’s Jet.

Imperial State’s dam, State Treasure (Free State), won the Grade 1 Gosforth Park Fillies Guineas and she is a half-sister to the classy Grade 1 winner Priceless Asset (Averof), who became a sire.

On debut Lucky Lad jumped from the worst draw by trends over 1160m on Turffontein Standside, draw one, and hesitated as they jumped. This allowed Richard Fourie to take him behind horses. However, he did not take any chances and switched him  to the inside for a run and went on to beat the well regarded Sandringham Summit by a quarter of a length, having jumped at odds of 33/20.

He started second favourite second time out as he was up against a filly who had been reportedly catching the proverbial pigeons at home, Amber Rock, and he had to give her 5,5kg. He was all out throughout in the 1100m contest at Turffontein Standside and having had a lot of ground to make up on the runaway leader Amber Rock he caught her late to win by 0,40 lengths.

Next up in the Gr 2 SA Nursery supporters of a normal horse would have been concerned early in the contest. He looked to be biting the side of the stalls just before the off, such was eagerness for them to open, and he lost a length. He was then caught with fresh air in front of him in the centre and he was already six or seven lengths off the leader, who was on the favourable standside. However, when Fourie got to work the picture changed dramatically and at the 300m mark it was clear there was only one horse in it. He went on to win by 2,75 lengths. 

On Saturday, Lucky Lad seemed too far out of his ground as the entered the final 500m, having jumped from the highest draw of all in the eleven horse field. However, the picture changed even more dramatically than it had in the Nursery as his devastating turn of foot propelled him to a 5,30 length win easing up! 

He did hang left which led to a ten day suspension for Richard Fourie as mentioned in article one of the newsletter today.

Lucky Lad has a classic pedigree, so it will be interesting to see where he goes from here. 

He will be remembered already for an amazing two-year-old campaign, but can he train on into a superstar classic horse?

Time will tell.