Wednesday 6 July 2011
Sensational filly Igugu put up a record-breaking performance on Saturday to lift the Gr 1 Durban July Handicap at Greyville, the most prestigious and important race in South Africa. The three-year-old, who is out of the Aga Khan Studs-bred ZARINIA, carried 55 kg to victory in this 2200 metre handicap, a record for her gender and age. The daughter of Galileo dominated her elders and male rivals to score by a length from four-year-old Pierre Jourdan, winner of the first two stages of the South African Triple Crown last year.
Igugu had already gone one better than this, becoming the first ever victrix of her local “Triple Tiara” or fillies’ triple crown when picking up the Guineas, SA Fillies’ Classic and Oaks earlier this year. Trained by Mike de Kock, Igugu has now won eight of her ten races, finishing second in the remaining two. The filly whose name means “jewel” in Zulu, was bred by Kia Ora Stud in Australia before being raised at Summerhill Stud in the Kwa Zulu Natal region of South Africa. Her dam ZARINIA (Intikhab) left Europe for the Southern hemisphere in 2004 when sold at Goffs International to De Burgh/Farrington for 30,000 €. ZARINIA is out of the winning Darshaan mare Zariliya who descends directly from Petite Etoile and Zahra, the line responsible for the 2008 European champion Zarkava.
From another highly-successful Aga Khan Studs line, Rewilding recorded his second Group 1 success when denying Australian star So You Think in an epic edition of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot. Rewilding (Tiger Hill) is one of a string of top-class performers out of Prix Vermeille winner DARARA (Top Ville), also dam of Dar Re Mi, Diaghilev (now renamed River Dancer in Hong Kong) and Darazari who have all succeeded at the highest level. DARARA shares her dam Delsy with the hugely influential Darshaan as well as Group 1 winner and sire Daliapour. She joined Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Watership Down Stud for 470,000 Irish Guineas back in 1994 and Rewilding is her final offspring. He is now being prepared for an attempt at a third Group 1 victory in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on 23rd July.
Updated on 06/07/2011.
