David Thiselton

The Corne Spies-trained three-year-old filly Elegantrix gave the stallion phenomenon Vercingetorix his eleventh stakes winner of the season when winning the Listed Betway Swallow Stakes for three-year-old fillies over 1200m on the Vaal straight course on Saturday.

It has also been a fine season for Marsh Shirtliff’s Greenacres Trust and Hemel ‘N Aarde Stud, who bred Elegantrix in partnership. Marsh stands his mares at David Hepburn Brown’s Hemel ‘N Aarde Stud and sometimes partners with the latter in the owning of mares, like they did with Elegantrix’s dam. Other winners Greenacres Trust have bred this season are the Gr 1 WSB Cape Fillies Guineas winner Quickstepgal (Vercingetorix). Marsh has also done some breeding out of Australia in the past and one of the horses he bred was the exciting Australian-bred St Harry (Harry’s Angel), who was hugely impressive on debut at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth last week. Greenacres Trust also bred  the Gr 1 winner from last season Fiery Pegasus, who has only had one start this season.

Vercingetorix broke a record for stakes winners last season with 23 black type winners and they won 33 black type races between them.

This season the reigning champion sire’s eleven black type winners have won 13 black type races between them and as the halfway mark of the season has not yet been reached he is on his way to breaking his own record.

Elegantrix was impressive from day one and was also a black type winner in her juvenile season.

After winning on debut, she later won the Gr 3 Godolphin Barb Stakes against the boys over 1100m, beating the subsequent Gr 1 Gold Medallion winner Good For You.

In her next start she finished a 1,10 length second in the Gr 1 Allan Robertson Championship behind Direct Hit with One Fine Winter 0,30 lengths behind her in third place.

She suffered a terrible trip in her next start in the Gr 2 Omada Golden Horseshoe over 1400m against the boys, but bounced back with a narrow second to Princess Of Gaul in the Gr 2 World Pool With Race Coast Debutante over 1200m.

She began this season with a 0,90 length second to World Of Alice in a Graduation Plate over 1450m, but she seemed a bit below par in her next four starts with a 3,30 length second in a Graduation Plate over 1400m to the useful One Eye On Vegas being her next best finish.

It was thus not surprising that she was only third favourite with bookmakers on Saturday at 33/10 behind the 28/10 pair One Fine Winter and Anchorage, although the tote favourite was Rifle Queen, who was returning from a layoff after easily winning her first two starts in July and August last year.

The jockeys generally went to the inside throughout the day in the races down the straight, so Elegantrix’s relatively low draw of five was advantageous.

However, it was Rifle Queen blazing a lone trail on the outside who led for most of the way. Elegantrix led the inside bunch and Ryan Munger angled her towards the far rail. She shook off the horse who had the rail, the 100/1 outsider Season’s Greetings, and went clear of the inside bunch.

It was soon clear One Fine Winter, who had to negotiate a high draw of eight, was going nowhere. Anchorage had the advantageous number one draw, but she proved quirky in her last start when trying to bite the winner close to home, and on Saturday she never really got into it.

Elegantrix used her big stride well in the finish and got the better of Rifle Queen by 1,50 lengths with Season’s Greeting beaten 2,40 lengths into third ahead of Perfect Miracle and Malibu.

Raced by Trevelen Pillay’s TKP Racing, Rob Macnab, Braam van Huyssteen, & S Poriazis, Elegantrix was an R850 000 BSA National Two-year-old Sale graduate. She is out of the once winning Danehill Dancer mare, Elegantes, and is now a winner of three races with five places from her thirteen starts and she took her stakes earnings to R748 519.

Vercingetorix is on his way to a second national Sires title as he is already just under R4 million clear of the three-times champion sire Gimmethegreenlight.

Vercingetorix had a winners-to-runners percentage of 57.9% in his championship-winning season in 2024/2025, which was the highest on the log of those sires who had a significant number of runners and this season out of the top 20 sires on the log he is the highest in that statistic again on 41.7%, which shows that apart from breeding champions he is also consistent in producing good horses.

Among the top 20 on the log, he is second highest in the Average Earnings per runner statistic this season with his 216 runners to date earning an average of R75,057, with only Ideal World being higher on R120,558, although that is from 42 runners.

Vercingetorix should approach his last season’s Average Earnings Per Runner mark of R156,124 (for 247 runners), which was second only to the sire of Equus Horse Of The Year Eight On Eighteen, whose sire Lancaster Bomber’s Average Earnings Per Runner was 157,168.

Vercingetorix is without doubt the best sales stallion of all time in South Africa with his progeny averaging R1,435 million at the National Yearling Sale last year and R 1,661,364 in the Race Coast Sales March Yearling Sale Day One.

Will he become the best producing sire in SA history too, meaning he would likely have to surpass the feats of Jet Master?

Vercingetorix had a quick double at the Vaal meeting with the Mano Pandaram-trained Vanakkam winning the race that followed the Swallow Stakes.