It may have been just an ordinary midweek meeting at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Wednesday. But the De Kock stable took the wraps off what looks to be a potentially smart sort!
Named Exocet, and campaigned by breeders Ridgemont and Devin Heffer, the juvenile colt contested the 1000m opener and after pacing it out with favourite Mfethu, took command inside the final furlong to stretch clear for a facile two-length debut score under Callan Murray.
One of the hottest stallions currently standing in the UK, this son of Acclamation made an electric start to his stallion career as Europe’s Champion Freshman sire of 2020 with a record 56 individual winners, from which have since emerged the Gr1 winners Supremacy, Minzaal, Chez Pierre and Going Global.
More interesting though, is the fact that Exocet boasts an exceptional South African female line, one which in recent time has been nurtured with great success by Varsfontein Stud and has transcended international borders.
He is out of the American-bred Hat Trick mare Three Hearts, a stakes winning daughter of Prix du Cap winner Secret Heart.
By Fort Wood out of London News’s stakes winning half-sister Secret Pact, Secret Heart’s siblings include champion Promisefrommyheart, the dam of Master Of My Fate, and to Gr1 winner Covenant, who produced the successful first-season sire Erik The Red.
Purchased by Team Valor, Secret Heart spent her broodmare career stateside and struck with her first foal, the Gr2 Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf hero Pluck.
Likewise bred and raced by Team Valor, Three Hearts captured Del Mar’s Gr3 Red Carpet Handicap and was Gr2/3 placed on a number of occasions.
As history would have it, Ridgemont purchased her at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale and sent her to Ireland where she produced the winner Take Heart to Dark Angel, a paternal half-brother to Mehmas.
Ridgemont exported Three Hearts to South Africa while in foal to Mehmas, and she gave birth to Exocet in late August 2022.
]The mare has a yearling colt by Rafeef and is due to the son of Redoute’s Choice in September.
In Exocet, the wheel has turned full circle, since his grandam left these shores, and while one swallow does not make a summer, here’s hoping his debut win is just the first of many!