Wilgerbosdrift’s G1 Travers Stakes winning stallion Flower Alley has had a wonderful season in 2022-2023, and the inform son of Distorted Humor was at it again, when Flower Alley supplied two very smart looking winners at the Vaal on Thursday afternoon.
Making just his second start, after finishing second on debut, Flower Alley gelding Total Surrender stamped himself a horse to follow when running out a ready winner of the third race on Thursday, the Book A Table Call 0116811796 Maiden Plate (1400m).
Under Craig Zackey, the Lucky Houdalakis trained three-year-old stormed away to score a shade cosily by nearly a length and a quarter, and Total Surrender looks to have the scope to build on this first victory.
Bred by Titanium Racing, Total Surrender is out of the Fort Wood mare Passionate Kiss
Flower Alley struck again in the very next race run at the Vaal when his two-year-old daughter Sweet Basil made the perfect start to her racing career with a game win on debut. Under Diego De Gouveia, the Stuart Pettigrew trained filly showed plenty of heart in holding off her older rival Count Your Chances and win by a head in a smart performance in open company.
Bred by Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein, Sweet Basil is out of the Black Minnaloushe mare Pure Spice -which makes Thursday’s winner a full-sister to G2 Wilgerbosdrift SA Oaks runner up Pomander.
Sweet Basil was a R320 000 purchase from the 2022 August Two Year Old Sale.
The filly is the third South African two-year-old winner this season for Flower Alley, whose other juveniles this season include promising G2 WSB SA Fillies Nursery runner up Red Hot Rose. The latter has been entered for the G1 Allan Robertson Championship at Hollywoodbets Scottsville in June.
Flower Alley, currently seventh on the South African General Sires List this season, has been responsible for six stakes winners of nine black type races in South Africa this season thus far, and the Wilgerbosdrift resident has had more stakes winners this season thus far than the likes of Master Of My Fate, Querari, and Silvano.
Sire of this season’s graded stakes winners Clafoutis, Gilded Butterfly, None Other and the brilliant Princess Calla, Flower Alley has a single lot on sale at the 2023 KZN Yearling Sale.