Pluck filly coming up Roses in South Africa

Pluck’s 3yo filly Knysa Rose (Aus) is finally finding her way in South Africa and the only way is up after she bolted in at Turffontein on Tuesday.

A $40,000 buy from Vinery Stud at the 2015 Gold Coast Magic Millions, she accelerated to a 7-length victory against older mares in the Computaform Express (1450m).

Knysa Rose (3f Pluck – Attunga Rose by Springsteen) was initially prepared by Mike Azzie and had shown exceptional promise when second to stablemate Shabang on debut at Vaal 12 months ago.

Now under the care of Joey Soma, she was runner-up at Turffontein twice earlier this year before the effortless victory in maiden ranks for owners Adriaan & Rika van Vuuren.

The Vinery graduate is from an unraced half-sister to Mossman’s South African war-horse Royal Zulu Warrior (Charity Mile-Gr.2) and prominent Hunter Valley breeder John Tiyce has kept the link going at Vinery.

Attunga Sue’s 2yo is the Tony McEvoy-trained colt Domination (All Too Hard) and she has a yearling colt by Mossman and a colt on the ground by Pluck.

Meanwhile, Pluck’s NZ-bred 3yo Mongolian Wolf is marking time for the Queensland Derby-Gr.1 after missing a flight to Brisbane last week.

Trainer Darren Weir set him for a trip north after winning the Frank Packer Plate-Gr.3 at Randwick in April, however, transport problems have severely disrupted stable plans in the last month.

Mongolian Wolf stayed at home for the Noel Rundle Hcp (2000m) on Saturday but was never in the hunt at Caulfield.   “Nothing went to plan and he raced a bit flat,” Australian Bloodstock manager Jamie Lovett said.  “We were hoping to push on to Queensland but, if Darren thinks he’s had enough, we will put him away and have a nice horse for the spring.”