The ‘Devil’ Is Returning Home

Dancewiththedevil is preparing to leave Britain and she will be due to land in Johannesburg quite soon, where she will return to KZN to begin her career at stud for breeder, owner and trainer St John Gray.

A KZN-bred, Dancewiththedevil will be sent to Cathy and Jonathan Martin’s Hadlow Stud in Mooi River where her dam Emperor’s Dance and sire Modus Vivendi [pictured bottom right] stand for Graystone Stud.

KZN Breeders Broodmare Of The Year, Emperor’s Dance [pictured below left with the unusual pigmentation around her eyes], has produced four winners from five runners – including five-time winner Dance Alley (by Jam Alley), and has a two year old Jam Alley colt still to come through.

The five-time Gr 1 winning mare, whose sole outing was on British soil in the Royal Ascot’s Gr 3 Duke of Cambridge Stakes, was withdrawn from the Tattersalls December Sale. “I have decided to breed from the old girl myself,” owner/breeder St John Gray said this week.

“Although I tried to have her covered to Southern Hemisphere time, it was probably too late and she refused to cycle. She will be returning to South Africa in January.” The mare’s finest efforts in her native South Africa included a breathtaking last-to-first score in the first of two H F Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut victories at Turffontein, in addition to which she stormed home to claim the 2000m Gr 1 Sansui Summer Cup from a star-studded field.

Voted 2011’s Equus Champion Older Female, Dancewiththedevil retires with earnings in excess of R3.9-million.

    

– extract facebook.com