The Wilgerbosdrift (UK) Ltd-bred and Mary Slack-owned Marmara Sea (Golden Horn), not to be confused with the Wilgerbosdrift home-bred SA-based gelding Marmara Sea (Soft Falling Rain), finished second in a race at Lingfield on Tuesday (Racing TV).
A Golden Horn filly bred by Mary Slack’s Wilgerbosdrift (UK) Ltd and owned by Slack ran second in a three-year-old Novice Stakes race over a mile and four furlongs on the Lingfield All Weather on Tuesday.
The filly’s name is Marmara Sea, which interestingly is the same name as the Wilgerbosdrift homebred East Cape poly sensation, a gelding by Soft Falling Rain out of dual Gr 1-winning sprinter Alboran Sea who at one stage won eight successive races on the Fairview polytrack.
The British-bred filly is trained by Jane Chapple-Hyam and ran a good 3,35 lengths fourth in a six-horse Class 2 Fillies Novice Stakes over a mile and four furlongs at Newmarket in her previous start at odds of 40/1.
Today was her fourth career start and as it was a class 5 Novice Fillies Stakes event she started 4/1 third favourite in an eleven horse field.
She was ridden by Marco Ghiani and the Racing Post comment was, “Prominent, went second after 2f, lost position briefly over 2f out, led inside final furlong, headed inside final 110yds (op 11/2)”
Golden Horn was owned and bred by Anthony Oppenheimer, who shares a great grandfather with Mary Slack.
The John Gosden-trained son of Cape Cross was the 2015 European Horse of the Year after winning the Epsom Derby, Arc de Triomphe, Irish Champion Stakes, Eclipse Stakes, and coming second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
In a racing career which lasted 367 days from October 2014 until October 2015 he won seven of his nine races and was never beaten by a male horse.
On 1 August 2018, during an interview on ITV Racing at Goodwood, Frankie Dettori declared Golden Horn as his favourite horse of all time.
He has sired five Group winners and 12 other stakes winners on the flat but no Gr 1 winners and he was sold by Darley and Anthony Oppenheimer to stand as a dual purpose stallion at Overbury Stud.
Marmara Sea’s dam is an Irish-bred maiden by Desert Style.