Wilgerbosdrift, which is currently home to G1 winning and producing sire Flower Alley, is set to gain an exciting new stallion for the 2019 South African breeding season.
The blue blooded Fire Away, a high class son of outstanding sire War Front, is set to join Flower Alley at Wilgerbosdrift this year –and he looks a really exciting addition to the local stallion band.
Fire Away scored the biggest win of his career when he won the prestigious G3 Dixie Stakes, at Pimlico in 2018.
The Dixie Stakes, which was first run in 1870, has been won by some outstanding horses over the years, with past Dixie winners including such G1 winners as Better Talk Now, Paddy O’ Prado, World Approval, Fort Marcy, Sky Classic and Lure, as well as Triple Crown winners Whirlaway and Assault.
Fire Away’s seven career wins (which netted him over $600 000 in stakes) included another pair of black type wins in the Artie Schiller and Danger’s Hour Stakes respectively, with the bay also finishing third to Breeders’ Cup winning champion World Approval in the 2018 G3 Tampa Bay Stakes.
He is a son of Claiborne Farm’s outstanding Danzig stallion War Front, whose nearly 80 stakes winners (War Front is siring a world class 11% stakes winners to foals) include 19 individual G1 winners as well as outstanding US 3yo of 2019 –War Of Will.
War Front’s sire sons have made a promising start and they include Declaration Of War and The Factor, both of whom have already sired G1 winners.
Fire Away is a half-brother to Lane’s End based sire Mr Speaker who earned over $1.2 million and whose 6 wins included the G1 Belmont Derby and three other graded stakes triumphs.
His dam Salute, whose sire Unbridled is also broodmare sire of the outstanding stallion Tapit, was a smart racemare who ran second in the G2 Demoiselle Stakes and third in the G3 Tempted Stakes as a 2yo.
Salute herself is out of the remarkable US champion Personal Ensign –whose unbeaten 13 race career included a dramatic win in the 1988 G1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff and seven other G1 wins.
A daughter of outstanding sire/broodmare sire Private Account, Personal Ensign proved equally potent at stud –so much so that she was North America’s Broodmare Of The Year in 1996.
She produced three G1 winners Miner’s Mark (Jockey Club Gold Cup), Traditionally (Oaklawn Handicap) and My Flag (Breeder’s Cup Juvenile Fillies), with the latter also dam of G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and champion Storm Flag Flying.
Personal Ensign’s G1 Carter Hcp second son Our Emblem also made his mark –as the sire of US champion and Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem, while Personal Ensign’s daughter Title Seeker is granddam of G1 Clark Handicap winner (and $2.9 million plus earner) Seeking The Soul.