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London Guest can follow in dad’s footsteps

Published by charl on June 30, 2009

LONDON GUEST, if he wins the Vodacom Durban July on Saturday, will become the first horse to ever follow in the footsteps of both his sire and grandsire as a winner of Africa’s Greatest Horseracing Event.

His sire, London News, trained by Alec Laird, won the July in 1996 and was himself the son of a previous winner, the 1987 winner Bush Telegraph, who was trained by Bert Abercrombie.

There have been a few July winning progeny of previous winners but the sequence has never before reached a third generation.

In 1911 Nobleman became the first and only ever two-year-old winner of the July and it was also the first time the progeny of a previous winner had won the race.

His mother, Peerless, had won in 1903.

Nobleman was ridden by Alec Laird, the father of record-breaking seven-time winning July trainer Syd Laird and grandfather of current trainers Alec and Charles Laird, who have each won one July.

In 1915 Winnipeg became the first horse sired by a previous winner, 1909 winner King’s Favourite.

In 1951 the winner Gay Jane was the daughter of 1941 winner Sadri II.

The following year one of the July’s most revered winner’s, Mowgli, was the son of 1940 winner, Kipling.

C’est Si Bon, winner in 1954, put Sadri II into the record books as the only July winner to have sired two winners of South Africa’s premier horse race.