Super Start for Super Sire

Super Start for Super Sire

Sarah Whitelaw takes a look at Trippi’s continuing success story:

Drakenstein Stud’s Trippi has made an eye-catching start to his stud career in South Africa. The son of End Sweep is represented by his first crop of 2yos this season, and these juveniles have taken the South African racing industry by storm!

Trippi’s offspring were in wide demand, even prior to setting foot on a racetrack. A proven success overseas, Trippi’s yearlings made headlines in the very first sale they appeared.

Trippi made his South African sales ring debut at the 2011 Cape Premier Yearling Sale. At that prestigious event, Trippi had three yearlings sell for R1 million, and another six make R500 000 plus! Overall, Trippi was the second leading sire by average, and third leading sire by aggregate.

This was a truly exceptional SA debut for Drakenstein’s magnificent stallion, who sold 21 yearlings for an average price of R555 667.

At the 2011 Emperors Palace National Sale, Trippi was responsible for the sale’s second top priced colt – a son of La Patoneur who was knocked down to Mike Bass Racing for R2.1 million.



The stallion was also responsible for four yearlings making R1 million plus at the 2012 Cape Premier Yearling Sales. Highest priced Trippi yearling at the premier event, was lot 60, a colt by the name of Magnificent Trip. Consigned by Highlands Farm, the colt was knocked down to Form Bloodstock for R1.7 million!

Trippi’s yearlings have topped both the 2012 Cape Premier Yearling Sale (Book 2) and the 2011 Cape Summer Yearling Sale. And it is these statistics which make Trippi, indisputably, the most commercial stallion currently at stud in South Africa today.

However, it is not sales statistics which make a great stallion, it is the results achieved on the racetrack. And Trippi’s offspring are certainly ensuring that their sire is the hottest, and most talked about, stallion at stud in South Africa today.

Trippi is one of just a few great sires whose very first runner is a stakes winner.

The very first Trippi youngster to step onto a South African racetrack was the talented filly, Agra. Unbeaten in two starts to date, Agra won the Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes on Met day – a race which produced numerous G1 winning champions in recent years. Agra looks very special, and she should give her owners, Team Valor and Ananant and Vanashree Singh plenty of thrills in the seasons ahead.



Remarkably, Agra is just one of three stakes winning juveniles from Trippi’s first crop to date. The Oppenheimer owned Franny gave her sire his first South African graded stakes winner when she won the G3 Pretty Polly Stakes at Turffontein. Franny has also been nominated to take the colts on in the G2 The Nursery on Champions Day.



Franny

Mike Bass trains another classy Trippi filly, Hammie’s Hooker, who has won two of her three starts to date, including the Listed Perfect Promise Sprint. Hammie’s Hooker topped the 2011 Cape Summer Yearling Sale, when fetching R360 000, and she has proved a bargain!

Trippi is not just a great filly sire, he is also the sire of a number of uber promising 2yo colts. What is interesting to note, is that Trippi’s stakes winners to date are divided equally into colts and fillies. Among Trippi’s classy looking colts are the Mike Brass trained Abercrombie (rated very highly by his shrewd handler) and the unbeaten pair of Trip to Kashmir and Ziparana.

Both Ziparana and Trip to Kashmir have been entered in the G1 SA Nursery on Champions Day. A win for either colt would further increase the awe with which Trippi is regarded in the South African breeding industry.

Trippi is currently well clear on the first season sires crop. He is also South Africa’s leading sire of juveniles, by money earned, at the time of writing.

For this great young sire, the sky is the limit!