Gold Circle Pty (Ltd)

Today's Racing :

Bold Silvano has deep roots

David Thiselton
The influence on our bloodstock through the horses brought to South Africa by one of South Africa’s great horsemen of yesteryear, SB “Solly” Joel, is still being felt almost a century later through the likes of the current three-times Champion Sire Jet Master and one of the three-year-old sensations of this
season, the Port Elizabeth-based and Gavin Smith-trained colt Bold Silvano.
Both Jet Master and Bold Silvano hail from South African mares that were sired by imported sons of Joel’s great stallion, Polymelus.
Joel was the nephew of the legendary Barney Barnato, who together with Cecil John Rhodes controlled all diamond production in Kimberley.
Barney handed the reins of his business to his brother Harry just before the turn of the 20th century, and Solly, his brother JB and their cousins later inherited it from Harry in 1908. J.B, charged with illicit diamond buying, jumped bail in South Africa and headed for England, where he became Britain’s most successful thoroughbred breeder in the first two decades of the 20th century. His Childwick Bury Stud turned out the winners of eleven classic races between 1900 and 1918.
Solly Joel bred only one classic winner, the wartime Derby and St. Leger winner, Pommern, from his English breeding operation.
However, his legacy to the thoroughbred breed, and to South African bloodstock, came via his purchase of the good racehorse Polymelus while still in training.
Polymelus had finished second in the King James Palace Stakes and the St Leger as a three-year-old and Joel bought him for 42,000 guineas as a four-year-old.
Polymelus then reeled off two big handicap wins in the Duke Of York Handicap and the Cambridgeshire. Three days after winning the latter he won the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, today one of the premier Group 1 races on the English calendar.
As a five-year-old Polymelus won the Princess Of Wales Stakes before being sent to Joel’s Maiden Erlegh stud near Reading, where he was to spend the rest of his life. Polymelus was never considered in the same class as the classic winners of his generation, but at stud, it was a different story, for he became the most successful British stallion of his era. He was Champion British sire on five occasions. Besides all the great racehorses he sired, Polymelus’ influence is felt around the world today through his son Phalaris, who established Europe, and later America’s most dominant male line. The likes of the greats Northern Dancer and Nearco hale directly from this line.
Polymelus’ chief influence on South African female lines came via Polystome, who was imported to South Africa by Joel for racing, before being bought at age seven by the dominant South African breeder of the first forty years of the 20th century, Henry Nourse. Polystome was champion sire on eleven occasions.
One mare that Polystome produced was Giddy Girl out of a South African-bred mare Hoity Toity. Giddy Girl is on the direct female line of Jet Master. She is the great racehorse and stallion’s seventh dam.
Bold Silvano’s sixth dam is Letitia, who is by Polyscope, a son of Polymelus also imported to South Africa for racing before becoming a stallion.
Bold Silvano won the Listed Racing Association Stakes over 1 600m at Fairview on Friday last week, his third feature race win in succession.
This followed wins in the Grade 3 Champion Juvenile Cup over 1 400m at Fairview and the non-black type Racing Association Plate over 1 400m at Arlington.
The good looking Silvano colt has won now won four of six starts and such has been the impressive style of his last three wins that some are calling him the best three-year-old in the country. Time will tell whether he becomes a “freak” like Jet Master, who some thought would never make it as a stallion because of a supposedly weak female line.

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