Drakenstein Stud’s evergreen champion sire Trippi ended the 2021-2022 South African racing season on a high-note when his champion son Jet Dark won the G1 HKJC World Pool Champions Cup ((1800m) at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Saturday.
It was a second consecutive Champions Cup win for Jet Dark, who downed the subsequently exported Catch Twentytwo when victorious in the 2021 Champions Cup.
Under an inform Richard Fourie, four-year-old Jet Dark raced midfield for much of the running in Saturday’s R1 000 000 contest, as his stablemate Crown Towers made the running.
Fourie bought Jet Dark with a sustained run down the inside of the track, and the pair settled down to fight out a thrilling finish with Kommetdieding, which saw Jet Dark prevail by a neck over a game Kommetdieding. It was another two and a quarter lengths back to 2022 G1 TAB The Premier’s Champions Challenge winner Astrix who finished third.
It was a fourth G1 win for Jet Dark, who also captured the G1 LÓrmarins Queen’s Plate in both 2021 and 2022. The classy colt, Equus Champion 3YO Colt and Champion Miler of 2020-2021, had also finished runner up in both the 2022 G1 World Sports Betting Cape Town Met and G1 Hollywoodbets Durban July.
Bred by Drakenstein Stud, the Justin Snaith trained Jet Dark has now won seven of 16 starts for earnings of R4 171 600.
Jet Dark, who is out of the Jet Master mare Night Jet, was a R200 000 buy from the 2019 National Yearling Sale.
His champion sire Trippi has had another fine season in 2021-2022 with Trippi responsible for nine stakes winners in South Africa -more than the likes of Master Of My Fate, Querari and Rafeef.
Trippi is also broodmare sire of boom US sire Not This Time -whose top-class son Epicenter ran out a brilliant winner of Saturday’s G2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga. A too-good-to-be-second as the favorite in both the GI Kentucky Derby and GI Preakness Stakes, Epicenter stamped himself as the horse to beat in the G1 Travers Stakes with a powerful, last-to-first victory in Saturday’s GII Jim Dandy Stakes.
Taylor Made’s Not This Time continues to cement his spot atop the third-crop sire list, getting yet another graded win with Epicenter’s Jim Dandy. With just over 9% stakes winners to foals in his first two crops, he is more than holding his own among the top 10 leading sires in North America for the year as well.
Original article by Cape Breeders Club