It is not surprising Mike and Adam Azzie are training the beautifully bred Wylie Wench as she is out of a three-parts sister to the revered Azzie-trained National Currency and this athletic chestnut is now SA Champions Season-bound after downing a good field at Turffontein Inside yesterday.

In the Graduation Plate for fillies and mares over 1450m she quickened well fom midfield to beat the 113 merit rated Rio's Winter by three-quarters of a length and the 111 merit rated Wisteria Walk was a further three-quarters of a length back in third.

She received 3kg from the former and 2,5kg from the latter.

She wandered around in the front in her previous start and although running straighter this time it was only her third start and she could have more to come.

Mike Azzie said he had deliberately put her in this strong field to test her ability as he had believed she was of classic class.

Her chief target now is the Grade 2 Daisy Fillies Guineas on the SA Champions Season's official opening night on May 1.

Mike has not yet decided whether she will raid or come down and stay at Summerveld and take in another race before the Fillies Guineas.

Wylie Wench's ownership, Varsfontein Stud, is also not surprising.

The founder of this top echelon stud, Anthony Kalmanson, won two hurdles races in the UK on Wylie Wench's great-great grandam Lucky Libra in the early 1970s before bringing her out to South Africa for breeding purposes.

Anthony's twin offspring John Kalmonson and Susan Rowett came to regret selling Lucky Libra's daughter Enchanting to Graham Beck as she became a matriarch at stud.

So they always look out for her family at the Sales and landed the Lammerskraal Stud-bred Wylie Wench, who is out of Enchanting's daughter Enchantress, for R600, 000 at the 2018 National two-year-old Sales.

A discussion at the Sale with Mike Azzie, who has trained the like of National Currency and Harry's Charm from the family, was all it took to decide who would train her.

Harry' s Charm won four Grade 1s plus the Grade 2 SA Fillies Nursery.

The three-time Grade 1-winning National Currency, who won the Mercury Sprint by six lengths, had the world st his feet when cruelly cut down by a suspected snake or scorpion bite in Dubai.

Wyle Wench has the Azzie and Kalmanson families dreaming again.

Gold Circle

Picture: Wylie Hall, who in 2014 became the third horse to lose the Vodacom Durban July on objection after crossing the line first, has made a good start at stud and Wylie Wench is one of his most exciting progeny to date.