There was further success for South African owners at Geelong in Australia on Wednesday when the beautifully bred steel grey National Code followed up on her maiden victory three weeks earlier to make it two wins from three starts.
Ridden again by Daniel Stackhouse, the daughter of Written Tycoon dictated matters from out front and cruised home to take top honours in the fourth race over 1114m.Out of a daughter of the former South African Horse Of The Year National Colour, National Code is a half-sister to the dual Gr1 winner Celestial Legend.
National Code races in a partnership of Mike de Kock, Larry Nestadt, Hollywood Racing and the Kieswetter family’s Barnane Stud, and is trained by Ben, Will & JD Hayes.
The four-year-old boasts a female line well known in South Africa. Her dam Sarraqa is a Snitzel daughter of Champion Female Sprinter National Colour, whose exploits on the racetrack yielded Gr1 victories in all of the Computaform Sprint, Mercury and SA Fillies Sprint, subsequent to which she ran second in the prestigious Gr1 Nunthorpe Stakes in the UK.
National Colour spent her broodmare career in Australia, yet her best progeny raced in South Africa, notably the Redoute’s Choice colts Rafeef and Mustaaqeem, both of which were trained by Mike de Kock for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Rafeef is currently one of South Africa’s most popular elite stallions and stands at Ridgemont Stud.
National Code’s dam Sarraqa never raced, but has followed in the footsteps of her own dam as a Gr1 producer, striking with her very first foal, the Dundeel colt Celestial Legend, who landed both the Gr1 Randwick Guineas and Doncaster Handicap. National Code is her second foal and was followed by a Maurice colt.
The winner’s multiple champion sire Written Tycoon was Australia’s leading first-season sire in 2010/11, and leading sire of two-year-olds in 2015/16 and again in 2023/2024.
It is said that blood rules the land – National Code endorses that maxim and she looks an exciting broodmare prospect in the making.