The Swan Song gets up to clinch a most fitting victory (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Drakenstein’s Stud’s flagbearing stallion Trippi, who was South African Champion Sire in the 2015/2016 season, had 1,073 runners worldwide, sired 857 winners, including 94 stakes winners of 191 stakes races and he had 14 individual Grade 1 winners.
However, one of his most remarkable runners will always be the Summerhill Stud-bred colt The Swan Song.
This Justin Snaith-trained Greg and Gina Bortz-owned colt was purchased at the BSA National Yearling Sale for R300,000.
That is looking to be a fair price, considering he finished second on debut and then won his next two starts.
He acquired his name because he was Trippi’s last ever foal.
It was thus remarkable that on the day Trippi passed away he came out that evening and won at Hollywoodbets Greyville.
He had to overcome a draw of 9 out of 9 at last Friday night’s meeting and showed a fine turn of foot to win by a quarter of a length under Richard Fourie.
An interesting fact is that the first South African-bred Trippi to win was a filly called Agra, who was also trained by Justin Snaith, although she was ridden by Felix Coetzee.
Agra also became Trippi’s first SA-bred Stakes winner when winning the Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes on Met day under Coetzee.
