Wilgerbosdrift’s inform stallion Flower Alley enjoyed more big-race success when his outstanding daughter Princess Calla ran out a fluent winner of the G1 South African Fillies Sprint bought to you by The Witness (1200m) at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Saturday.
One of three G1 winners on the day for trainer Sean Tarry and jockey Richard Fourie, the brilliant five-year-old turned Saturday’s R750 000 sprint into a one-horse race, with Princess Calla drawing well clear to account for this season’s dual G1 winner Desert Miracle by nearly three and a quarter lengths.
Third in the G1 Jonsson Workwear Computaform Sprint last time out, Princess Calla was picking up the eighth graded win of her remarkable career, which has seen the mare win graded stakes over distances ranging from 1000m to 1600m.
The star five-year-old has won four graded races alone this season and is clearly one of the very best horses currently in training in South Africa.
It was also a second G1 win for the daughter of Flower Alley, with Princess Calla having also triumphed in the 2022 G1 HSH Princess Charlene Empress Club Stakes. In total, Princess Calla has won nine of 21 starts for earnings of R3 022 225 and she has only twice finished out of the first four.
Bred by Maine Chance Farms, Princess Calla is out of the Captain Al mare Princess Royal.
Her G1 Travers Stakes winning sire Flower Alley has had another wonderful season in 2022-2023 with the son of Distorted Humor also responsible for such other graded stakes winners as None Other (G2 Wilgerbosdrift Bridget Oppenheimer Oaks), Gilded Butterfly (G2 WSB Gerald Rosenberg Stakes) and Clafoutis (G3 Acacia Stakes), to name but a few. He is also the sire of this season’s classy but luckless three-year-old Feather Boa, runner-up in both the G1 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Classic and G1 HSH Princess Charlene Empress Club Stakes.