Silvano breaks own record

Newly crowned champion sire Silvano smashed his own record for earnings in a season and was dominant throughout the 2016- 2017 term.

The Maine Chance Farms based German-bred stallion won his second National Sires Championship with earnings of a staggering R27,867,675, which surpassed the record of R20,946,892 he set in the 2012-2013 season.

This season he was R8,775,037 clear of the 2014-2015 champion sire, the recently late Captain Al.

Silvano recently achieved his fourth victory in the country’s premier race, the Vodacom Durban July.

He is undoubtedly one of July history’s most dominant sires and to emphasise this point he sired Marinaresco, Al Sahem and Nightingale to first, second and tie-fourth in the big race this year, while he famously sired the July trifecta in 2015 and he sired the first and third-placed horses in the 2013 renewal.

Silvano had four individual Grade 1 winners this past season and they each won a single Grade 1. They were Marinaresco, Nightingale, Orchid Island and Al Sahem.

He was also the leading sire of three-year-olds and dominated in this department too. His three- year-olds earned R11,836,200, which was R4,852,000 clear of second-placed Dynasty.

Silvano’s average earnings per runner was R126,098 and he had a 54.3% winners to runners ratio.

He had 13 individual Black- Type winners of 20 races and all in all from 221 runners had 120 winners of 207 races.

A symbol of his dominance this season could be seen in the running of the Grade 2 Gold Bracelet where half of the 10 runners were by him. – Gold Circle

In other news Spring Valley Stud will be offering 14 lots at this month’s National Two-Year-Old Sale.

The farm’s collection includes four two-year-olds by their resident AP Indy sire Just As Well, including a three parts brother to the sire’s smart stakes placed winner of five Just As I Said (Lot 114), a filly from the same family as Grade 1 winning siblings Buy And Sell and Count The Money (Lot 140), a filly whose dam is a half-sister to the dam of millionaire Red Barrel (Lot 341) and a full-sister to the above mentioned Just As I Said (Lot 437).