The Rise of the Duke
Drakenstein Stud’s Duke of Marmalade has sired a generation of champions.
DRAKENSTEIN Stud’s Duke of Marmalade has sired a generation of champions.
In less than three months, three European Classic Derby’s have been won by the progeny of Duke of Marmalade. On Sunday, July 12, his offspring, Nutan, now based in Ireland, came home five lengths clear in the prestigious G1 Deutsches Derby in Hamburg, Germany.
This victory came three weeks after the Duke’s daughter, Star of Seville, led the field home in the G1 Prix de Diane at Chantilly after suffering severe interference in the G1 Epsom Oaks only days earlier.
These victories moved the five-time Group 1 winning Duke of Marmalade into seventh on the list of Leading Sires in Europe and fourth on the list for Leading Sires of Three Year Olds in Europe, complimenting his 2014 season where he concluded the year as Leading Third Crop Sire in Europe.
Duke of Marmalade is based at Drakenstein Stud Farm in Cape Town. In 2008, Drakenstein purchased G1 Vosburgh Stakes winner Trippi while he was based at Ocala Stud in Florida, USA. At the time of his acquisition Trippi had sired two Graded Stakes Winners and eleven Stakes Winners. The deal couldn’t have been concluded at a better time because one of his progeny’s, Jealous Again, won the G2 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot by five lengths, two months before Trippi’s first foals were born in South Africa in August 2009.
