Famous Fillies | Pink Tourmaline
Pink Tourmaline Proves A Real Gem
The sixth in our series at Kuda where we honour the fairer sex earning black type. Here we look at Pink Tourmaline and her mother Sapphire Gem, after the running of the Grade 2 Track And Ball Oaks.
Drakenstein Stud’s incredible run of feature race form this season continued when they produced another 1-2 in the 2400m Track and Ball Oaks at Scottsville. Light Of The Moon has been unlucky to finish second to Rain In Holland, Silver Darling and now Pink Tourmaline in big races this season, all of which have seen Drakenstein bred and owned fillies finish first and second. Her turn will surely come, but this it’s a time to celebrate Pink Tourmaline, who won in a tight finish and where jockey Luyolo Mxothwa was seen at his best in a driving finish.
Pink Tourmaline, trained by Brett Crawford who was in the UK for the Ascot meeting, has now won six of her 17 races and earned nearly R500 000 in stake money. An interesting stat is that if you had backed Pink Tourmaline throughout her career you’d have achieved a 197 percent return on investment.
She is beautifully-named: Her father is a former Equus Horse of the Year who stands at Drakenstein and her mother is Sapphire Gem. Pink Tourmaline is a valuable natural gemstone and her performances on the track have been as sparkling as her name suggests. Sapphire Gem is now a 10-year-old and Pink Tourmaline is from her second mating, with Futura in November 2016. She was born on 20 October 2017. Sapphire Gem’s first foal was a colt called King Of Gems (by Kingsbarns) and he was also trained by Brett Crawford winning two races including the Grade 2 Concorde Cup at odds of 33/1.
After Pink Tourmaline came into this world, Sapphire Gem was visited by the champion sir Dynasty on 15 December 2017, but was barren. Her September 2018 mating with another top sire, What A Winter, was similarly ill-fated with a no return, but a year later she was in foal to Master Of My Fate and produced the filly Fatal Gem on 2 September 2020. Most recently she was visited by Gimmethegreenlight with the result pending registration.
Photography courtesy of Candiese Lenferna.
