Dancer's Daughter, who dead-heated with the great Pocket Power in the 2008 Vodacom Durban July, is at stud at Ridgemont Highlands Stud farm and recently had her first black-type winner, the Dennis Bosch-trained Silvano gelding Born To Perform.

Trainer Justin Snaith had a soft spot for this amazing grey and his mind was immediately at peace when he heard she was going to stud at Highlands.

He said, "The horse always comes first at Highlands and I knew she would spend the rest of her life in luxury."

To date Dancer's Daughter has had six runners and four winners.

Born To Perform by Silvano resembles her in colour and phyisique and won the Listed Kings Cup at Greyville on 22 March this year.

Ridgemont Highlands stud manager Ross Fuller said she had let down into a "gorgeous" looking mare and was an absolutely wonderful mother to her foals.

The British-bred Dancer's Daughter was purchased relatively cheaply for 52,000 guineas at the 2005 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in England with the chief aim being simply to fill a jet stall which had one vacant space.

Jet stalls are built to contain three horses but whether there are one, two or three horses inside the cost is the same, so importers always attempt to fill them to make it more cost effective.

Dancer's Daughter thus became the second Vodacom Durban July winner this century after El Picha to have been purchased in order to make up the numbers in a jet stall.

She was by the little known sire Act One, who was eventually recognised as a National Hunt (jumps) stallion.

However, upon viewing the imported Highlands batch that year, Chris Snaith made the strongly built filly his first pick.

It was a case of history repeating itself as Chris had also made Flaming Rock his first pick when viewing Arc-En-Ciel's imported batch in the late 1980s.

Justin relates that when Chris informed Arc-En-Ciel owner Shirley Pfeiffer of his assessment, she replied that Terrance Millard had also been interested in the Irish-bred colt and would shortly be on his way to inspect the batch. Chris didn't want to take any chances so rushed home, drove the horse box straight to the farm and took Flaming Rock away. When Millard enquired later about Flaming Rock he was informed the horse was already taken!

Chris had to do a similar dash to secure Dancer's Daughter's because when the imported horses reached training age there was a mix up and she was taken to the wrong yard. Chris was there in a flash to say, "That's my horse!"

Justin said Dancer's Daughter had a lovely temperament. She was one of his favourite rides on the beach, where she was as quiet as a lamb.

However, it all changed as soon as she saw a race track. Her racing instincts then kicked in and she just loved to gallop.

Snaith recalled that she won her first grass gallop by seven lengths.

However, she always used to fight for her head in her workouts.

As a consequence the former rugby-playing Justin often had to ride her himself.

One day at her Clairwood Champions Season base he said to her before a workout, "Ok I have had enough of your fighting, so today I am just going to let you do your own thing."

He let her go and she ran three times around Clairwood's training track before he, not the horse, decided enough was enough.

It is ironic that in the build up to the 2008 Vodacom Durban July Dancer's Daughter was ridden in her work by Pocket Power's jockey Bernard Fayd'Herbe as he was one of the few capable of holding her.

Justin said, "If I had run her in the Gold Cup I think she could have won with 65kg on her back."

In 2008 there was a shortage of boxes at Clairwood and Snaith was given twenty wooden boxes at the back near the railway station.

Yet that did not stop Dancer's Daughter winning both the Grade 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge and the July.

She started off her Durban campaign badly. She had gone off her feed and ran a lacklustre race in the Grade 1 SA Fillies Sprint.

The Snaiths decided to fly her regular groom Cyprian Mkhonowana in from Cape Town.

She started kicking the door with excitement when she saw him and from that moment onward her campaign turned around.

She won the Gold Challenge next up under Weichong Marwing, despite pulling hard the whole way.

Marwing believed she would not stay the July trip and most pundits agreed with him. If she had pulled so hard over a mile how was she going to settle over 2200m?

Enter Kevin Shea who was renowned throughout his career for his seemingly magician like ability to settle horses.

He found cover one wide near the back and she finished strongly.

What was clear when watching that race live from the Greyville press box was that she was relishing her task and it is evident in the replays too.

She dead-heated with a legend, although she was receiving 5kg.

Snaith recalls that the handicappers had lowered Pocket Power two points after he had finished a 1,5 length fourth in the Gold Challenge and he reckoned that might well have cost her an outright win in the July.

Snaith believes Dancer's Daughter was retired too early, her last race being a victory in the Grade 1 Empress Club Stakes at Turffontein in 2009 as a five-year-old.

Gold Circle