Four Winners For Fort Beluga In February
| Four Winners For Fort Beluga In February |
Voted KZN’s Freshman Sire at our KZN Breeders Awards in 2014, Fort Beluga has produced four winners for February to date – including three winners over a period of three days.
The son of Fort Wood out of Langoustine by Northern Guest, stood at Spring Valley Stud where he only produced one crop of foals after passing away prematurely.
Three of the winners are bred by Bruce Le Roux of Spring Valley Stud and Bruce owns the first winner – Taking Chances [pictured above], trained by Duncan Howells.
The three year old filly out of Passive Resistance by Caesour placed second on debut and won second time out by half a length – over both the same course and distance, 1200m at Scottsville, ridden by Stuart Randolph.
The next to win on 12 February was at the Vaal racecourse, a three year old dark bay gelding owned by Chris Van Niekerk and trained by Sean Tarry. The beautifully named Cedar Wood [pictured right at the National 2YO Sale] is bred by Colleen and Gary De Klerk of Summerview Stud, and took his first win after placing consistently nine times over 1600m – 1800m. Running over 1200m, he won easily by a length from Give Me A Reason under Smanga Khumalo.
Cedar Wood is out of Rambo Dancer mare Done Roamin’, and fetched R100 000 at the National Two Year Old sale.
Three year old filly Call Me Maybe, part owned by breeder Bruce Le Roux along with Sea Cottage Trading CC and Andy Williams, trained by Garth Puller sauntered home to a three length victory over Anasa(ARG) at Greyville over 1400m on 13 February.
The filly is out of Russian Belle by Krusenstern, and narrowly missed victory in her previous start – just finished second by a nose. She has placed four times and a winner from just six starts.
Call Me Maybe is a half-sister to Gr2/Gr3 winner Silver Age and already looks to have secured her future in the breeding paddocks.
Reconsider Baby, trained by Des Egdes for syndicate Messrs B B Girnun, M A Anthony, R Munien, A Van Vuuren & M S Clutterbuck, D Yutar & H N Yutar, slammed her opposition at Scottsville on 15 February by a six and half length victory, over 1600m at Scottsville.
Going off at 33/1, the three year old filly is out of Protique by Proclaim. This is the immediate damline of Sarabande and Chesalon.
Fort Beluga kicked off his racing career in style, winning his first four starts. He began his fifth start at 18/10 in the Gr1 Cape Guineas, after an upset in the stalls prior to the race, he finished unplaced and the experience had a negative influence on his subsequent racing career.
However, Fort Beluga still managed to achieve six wins over a distance of 1200 – 1600m, from the age of 3 to 5 years.
Fort Beluga was a full-brother to eight-time winner Hundredacrewood, whose wins include the Grade 2 Premiers Trophy, as well 11-time winner Joshua Tree.
Sporting Post’s Sire stats as of 15 February show Fort Beluga to have a 50% runners to winners ratio from 30 runs this season – Fort Beluga is certainly a sad loss to breeding in KZN.
Congratulations to the winning connections, Bruce Le Roux and Summerview Stud!
