Picture : Dennis Bosch-trained filly Le Premiere was the second of three winners for underrated stallion Visionaire at the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly meeting on Monday this week (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Visionaire has for a long time been one of the most underrated stallions in South Africa and is proving so again as he has one of the most exciting three-year-old’s in the country, the Frank Robinson-trained Sovereign State.
This Sandown Stud-bred gelding cruised to his third win in three starts on Monday on the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly.
For good measure two other Visionaires won at the meeting, the Klawervlei Stud-bred Michael Roberts-trained four-year-old gelding Zabadak and the promising Wood-Moore Manor Stud Dennis Bosch-trained three-year-old filly Le Premiere.
Meeting trebles for stallions are few and far between.
Yet Turf Talk had to do some detective work to track down the whereabouts of Visionaire today.
And it looks like the USA-bred Grand Slam stallion has found the perfect farm for a sire who can be called good but not fashionable.
He is standing at Schalkie van der Walt’s Gelykfontein Stud in the Karoo.
He is getting plenty of support there, because there is not a plethora of local stallions to choose from for Karoo breeders.
Schalkie said, “He has six foals already and they look very nice.”
He said of his own 24 mares, he will send about 14 or 15 to Visionaire.
Schalkie looks to see how nice the foal is before deciding whether to send a mare back to a stallion.
One of the mares Visionaire received last season, and who has just foaled a filly, is the former Sean Tarry-trained Ecstatic Green, who won the Gr 2 Debutante Stakes over 1200m at Hollywoodbets Greyville by 2,40 lengths, having earlier finished a narrow second in the Gr 1 Allan Robertson Championship. The winner of the latter race was Vercingetorix filly Vernichey, who was later sold for big bucks to Australia. Ecstatic Green denied the crack champion filly War Of Athena second place, beating her by 0,70 lengths.
Schalkie is glad Ecstatic Green did not win the Allan Robertson, because it enabled him to buy her back on last year’s Sean Tarry Fast Track Sale, albeit for R675,000.
Ecstatic Geen’s mother, Ashtontown mare Ecstatic, has just foaled a colt by Visionaire.
Ecstatic has also previously produced the black type runner Sea Shadow, a four-time winner who finished runner up in the Gr 2 Ipi Tombe Challenge as well as third in the Gr 3 Three Troikas. Ecstatic’s third dam is the matriarch Soho Secret, which means she is from the family of a prolific number of top performers, including London News and Master Of My Fate.
The seven time-winning Gimmethegreenlight mare Fours A Crowd has also just foaled a nice Visionaire filly.
Schalkie himself sent five Gimmethegreenlight mares in all to Visionaire, two of whom have foaled already.
Another mare who has just produced a Visionaire foal is a grandaughter of Golden Apple, the dam of July-winning sire Pomodoro.
Schalkie said, “So he’s getting good mares and he looks well, he is 18 years old but he does not look old, he looks like a young horse, so let’s hope his fertility lasts. Last year his fertility was good.”
A couple of seasons ago he had a problem with an abscess on his neck and got very few mares. He generally wasn’t supported by Cape Breeders anyway, despite having moved down from KZN to Lammerskraal Stud after good early success.
However, he arrived at Gelykfontein from Lammerskraal in good health and is enjoying himself in the Karoo.
He covered about 40 mares last year and Schalkie expects him to get about 50 this year.
Gelykfontein is not far from Gary Player’s old stud farm.
Gelykfontein have been going for close to 90 years, having been established in 1934.
Their first yearlings were sold in 1937 in Johannesburg and below is the cover of that catalogue.
Schalkie has kept every single catalogue the farm has been represented in.
He also has other artefacts including the below horse mouth opener (to allow veterinarians to inspect a horse’s mouth), which he believes must be about 200 years old and he thinks it belonged to his great grandfather.
Gelykfontyein have produced fine horses over the years but none as good as the legendary 1961-born filly Renounce (Arctic Flower), who was the only female to ever beat the immortal Sea Cottage. She also beat another legendary horse in William Penn when winning the Cape Guineas against the boys. Renounce also won the Met as well as two Paddock Stakes (by five lengths and eight lengths) and the Garden Province Stakes (by seven lengths) among her total of ten wins and many big race places.
Schalkie has been taking horses himself to the Joburg Sales for 58 years and he took over the running of the farm when his father passed away way back in 1977.
Visionaire’s biggest win was in the Gr 1 King’s Bishop Stakes over 1400m.
He only had one lot at the last BSA National Yearling Sale, because that was the year where he did not produce many foals due to the neck abscess. However, the full sister to Gr 1 SA Fillies Classic winner Takingthepeace went for R475,000.
Schalkie said, “Visionaire is definitely a commercial stallion, they go for good prices.”
Visionaire has produced ten stakes winners of 24 races, including two Gr 1 winners (Takingthepeace and Good Traveller).
Will Sovereign State make it three?
