South Africa’s latest Gr1 winner, Saturday’s SA Classic winner Heavenly Blue, is certainly bred for the job. A grandson of triple Australian Champion Sire Redoute’s Choice, Heavenly Blue is the first South African Grade One winner for his sire Snitzel.

Snitzel, who stands at Arrowfield Stud in Australia for a fee of AUS$110 000 (or over R1 million!) , won seven of 15 outings and earned over AUS$1 million in stakes.
He scored the biggest win of his career when landing the 2006 Gr1 Oakleigh Plate, where Snitzel accounted for the outstanding sprinters Virage de Fortune (Anabaa) and Takeover Target (Celtic Swing) among others.

Snitzel, whose half-brother is rising Australian sire star Hinchinbrook (who will stand for a fee of AUS$44 000 this season), has rapidly established himself as one of Australia’s top sires, whose offspring excel on the track and who are much sought after in the sales ring.

His 58 stakes winners include such G1 winners as Shamus Award, Wandjina, Hot Snitzel, Russian Revolution, Sizzling, Sweet Idea, and Heavenly Blue, while Snitzel also made headlines when his sons Invader, Summer Passage and Trapeze Artist ran 1-2-3 in Saturday’s G1 Inglis Sires’ at Randwick.

Heavenly Blue aside, Snitzel’s other local runners include Unannounced (who won the first six races of his career) and the useful Raasmaal who ran fifth in Saturday’s Gr3 Man O’War Sprint.

Heavenly Blue is from an equally illustrious female line. Tracing back directly to the great broodmare Hilldene (dam of US champions First Landing and Hill Prince, and second dam of multiple champion Cicada), he is out of a winning daughter of US champion sire El Prado (Sadler’s Wells) and multiple Gr1 winner Astra (Theatrical).

The latter, who died after producing just 3 foals –one of them being Heavenly Blue’s winning dam Simply Carina, won 11 of 16 outings including the Gr1 Beverly Hills Handicap-twice, and the Gr1 Gamely Handicap.

Heavenly Blue himself was an AUS$200 000 buy from the 2015 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.