Ascot Stud’s beautifully bred young stallion Heavenly Blue got off the mark as a sire in style when his two-year-old son Zinovi romped home to win impressively at Turffontein on Tuesday.
Trained, like his sire, by Mike de Kock, Zinovi had finished third on debut before finishing fourth in the Listed Storm Bird Stakes on his only previous outing, and the colt made no mistakes on Tuesday.
Under Kabelo Matsunyane, Zinovi was always going strongly, and he kicked on powerfully close home to get up and win Tuesday’s Play Soccer 6,10 and 13 Maiden Juvenile Plate (1200m) by three parts of a length.
Bred by Danika Stud, the promising two-year-old is out of the Jallad mare Zayna.
Zinovi was an R200 000 buy from the 2022 National Yearling Sale.

He hails from the first crop of his well-performed sire Heavenly Blue, who won the 2017 G1 SA Classic over a field which included G1 SA Derby winner Al Sahem and G1 G-Bets Gauteng Summer Cup victor Tilbury Fort.
Heavenly Blue is a son of four times Australian champion sire Snitzel, whose growing list of successful sire sons includes proven G1 stallions Shamus Award and Russian Revolution.
Snitzel is also the sire of this year’s G1 Longines Golden Slipper winner Shinzo as well as the recently retired G1 ATC Golden Rose victor In The Congo.
Heavenly Blue, who is out of a daughter of champion sire El Prado and multiple G1 winner Astra, has six lots on offer at this month’s National Yearling Sale.