Wilgerbosdrift’s homebred champion Hawwaam gained another boost to his stellar pedigree when his classy full-brother Celestial City ran out an impressive winner at Turffontein on Tuesday.
A R7 000 000 buy from the 2020 National Yearling Sale, the consistent four-year-old had been placed in each of his four starts prior to Tuesday’s race, and Celestial City was duly rewarded for consistency with a smart win at Turffontein.
The Sean Tarry trained colt, under a confident ride from Kabelo Matsunyane, showed the benefit of dropping back to 1600m with a fluent win.
Celestial City stormed home with a late run down the inside of the track to win going away by over a length and three-quarters, and, judging by the ease of this win, there should be more to come from the son of Silvano.
Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Celestial City had won on debut before going on to finish second or third in each of his next four starts.
The colt, who has now won twice from just six starts, is the latest smart performer produced by Wilgerbosdrift’s outstanding broodmare Halfway To Heaven.
The latter, Equus Broodmare Of The Year in 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, is best known as the dam of Horse Of The Year Rainbow Bridge, dual G1 winner Golden Ducat, and five time G1 winning Equus Champion Hawwaam.
Hawwaam, who shares his champion sire Silvano with outstanding stallion Vercingetorix, was represented by his first foals in 2022.