The steadily growing credentials of Darley stallion Epaulette received another boost last weekend thanks to his best son Soqrat who scored his third G1 win in the Horse Chestnut Stakes at Turffontein in South Africa on Saturday.
A three-year-old taking on older horses at weight-for-age over 1,600 metres, the Mike de Kock trained Soqrat was sent out favourite and scored by three-quarters-of-a-length.
The Champion South African two-year-old of the 2017-18 season, he has now won five of nine starts and has never finished further back than second.
A homebred for Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum’s Shadwell Stud in Australia, Soqrat is the second winner for Hussonet mare Elzeeza, from the family of G1 Hong Kong Chairman's Prize Sprint winner Lucky Bubbles and Group winners Gunnison, Colorado Claire, Selenium and Moonovermanhattan.
Soqrat is one of six Stakes winners for Epaulette who also had a winner from his latest northern hemisphere crop to race in the first week of the Irish flat-racing season when Red Epaulette won on debut at Naas, becoming his sires 38th winner in the UK and Ireland.
Epaulette has also enjoyed a good start to 2019 in Australia with 14 individual winners in the first three months of the year, including Cossetot, who took out the Listed Tasmanian Derby and is a possible G1 ATC Derby.
