Silvano finishes atop South African sire standings

Silvano, a globetrotting Grade/Group 1 winner during his racing career, finished the 2012-2013 Southern Hemisphere racing season as South Africa’s leading general sire.

The 17-year-old son of Lomitas displaced runner-up Jet Master, whose stranglehold on the top spot had lasted the previous six seasons. Jet Master died in 2011 after contracting West Nile Virus.

Silvano stands at Maine Chance Farm in Robertson, South Africa. He sired five Group 1 winners during the recently concluded racing season, including Lucky Speed, winner of the Deutsches Derby in Germany, Heavy Metal, winner of the Vodacom Durban July, and Martial Eagle, winner of the J & B Met.

Silvano has sired 52 stakes winners from nine crops of racing age, as well as champions in South Africa, the Slovak Republic, Mauritius and Zimbabwe. Prior to moving to South Africa, Silvano was the Slovak Republic’s leading sire in 2007. His best U.S. performer is five-time graded stakes winner Proudinsky.

The stallion’s diverse global résumé as a sire mirrors his output on the racetrack, where he scored stakes wins or in-the-money finishes in five countries.

His seven wins in 18 career starts include victories in the Grade 1 Arlington Million and the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup in Hong Kong, both in 2001. He is also a multiple Group 2 winner in his native Germany and Group 2-placed in the U.A.E., compiling lifetime earnings of $2,321,024.

Bred in Germany by Gestut Fahrhof, Silvano is out of the winning Beau’s Eagle mare Spirit of Eagles, who was named Germany’s Broodmare of the Year in 2001 based on the strength of her standout foal’s campaign. The mare’s 10 winners from 12 foals to race also includes Sabiango, who was a Group 1 winner in Germany, then became a Grade 1 winner in the U.S.