Picture: The Piet Botha-trained Ragnar Lothbrok (Vercingetorix) wins for the third time on Saturday (Wayne Marks).     

PEDIGREE PROFILE-RAGNAR LOTHBROK

by Sarah Whitelaw

While beaten into second place, by his sire Silvano, on last season’s South African General Sires List, there can be no denying that former Equus Champion Vercingetorix enjoyed a fantastic season in 2021-2022.

The champion son of Silvano came up with more stakes winners last season in South Africa than any other sire, with Vercingetorix supplying 14 black type winners of 21 stakes races in 2021-2022.

His versatility was well to the fore last season, with Vercingetorix’s top level winners coming from 1200m (G1 Golden Horse Sprint) to 2000m (G1TAB The Premier’s Champions Challenge, G1 Jonsson Workwear Cape Derby) in 2021-2022.

Vercingetorix has once again come out firing in the first part of the 2022-2023 racing season, and currently ranks third (at the time of writing) on the general sires list.

His son Ragnar Lothbrok, a R200 000 purchase from the 2020 Cape Premier Yearling Sale, turned the seventh race at Kenilworth into a one horse-race, with the Piet Botha trained gelding romping home to score by four and a quarter lengths.

Ragnar Lothbrok hails from one of the very best families in the stud book -and one which continues to produce high-class performers all around the world.

The gelding is out of useful racemare Dijla, who finished second in the 2009 G2 The Debutante, where beaten just a short head by the victorious Captain’s Call. Ragnar Lothbrok is one of two winners produced by his dam thus far, with Dijla also responsible for the dual winning Musaytara.

Dijla, in turn, was sired by now deceased US champion sire Elusive Quality, who made waves as a broodmare sire last week through the deeds of his brilliant maternal grandson No Nay Never (by Scat Daddy out of the Elusive Quality mare Cat’s Eye Witness).

The latter, whose 2022 flagbearers also include G1 Darley July Cup winner Alcohol Free and seven length G1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes victor Little Big Bear) had a memorable weekend this past week, with No Nay Never supplying a trio of group winning two-year-olds. Not only did No Nay Never’s juvenile son Blackbeard (previously successful in the G2 Darley Prix Robert Papin) land Sunday’s G1 Darley Prix Morny, the No Nay Never sired two-year-olds Mediate and Aesop’s Fables won the G2 Alpha Centauri Debutante Stakes and G2 Galileo Irish EBF Futurity Stakes one day earlier.

Dijla, whose dam Furaat was sired by the immortal Danehill, numbers none other than Courtly Dee as her fourth dam.

A daughter of Never Bend, Courtly Dee was North America’s US Broodmare Of The Year in 1983, with her progeny including US champion Althea and fellow G1 winners Ali Oop (Sapling Stakes) and Ketoh (Cowdin Stakes).

Courtly Dee, the third dam of top sire and broodmare sire Arch (damsire of prominent sire Uncle Mo among others) also ranks as the granddam of top sire Green Desert, with the latter having become a hugely influential sire of sires through the likes of Cape Cross, Invincible Spirit and Oasis Dream.

Other notable performers descended from Courtly Dee include G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern, Japanese classic winner One And Only and the 2022 G2 Brooklyn Stakes winner Fearless.