Article posted by Cape Breeders Club on May 5, 2015.
Varsfontein Stud’s exciting young sire Master Of My Fate has certainly settled down really well into stud life.
The handsome son of Jet Master has let down into a magnificent stamp
of a horse, who really fills the eye (as these photos clearly indicate) and he looks a really exciting addition to the Western Cape stallion band.
Master Of My Fate, a horse who is said to have an excellent temperament, proved extremely popular and fertile in his first season at stud.
Among his first mates in 2014 were the likes of Alexandra Bi (dam of G1 winner Alexandra Rose and exciting Singapore galloper Alexandra Palace), Princess Polly (dam of G1 Champions Cup hero Master Plan), Princess Tobin (dam of SW Badger’s Cove and Princess Alberta), Tina’s Trip (a half sister to G1 Paddock Stakes heroine Thunder Dance) and the exciting Subyan Dreams (dam of G1 performers Felix The Cat and MLJet, as well as R2.6 milion buy Bombardino).
Like leading sires Captain Al, Dynasty, Elusive Fort and Jet Master himself, Master Of My Fate is a South African bred stallion.
Master Of My Fate’s good looks and pedigree made him an understandably expensive yearling purchase.
The Varsfontein Stud bred colt was a R3 million purchase from the 2011 Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale, a price tag which made Master Of 
My Fate the second top lot sold at the sale.
Sent into training with Dennis Drier, Master Of My Fate went on to win or place in seven of his eight outings. In landing the Gr2 Premier’s Trophy and Gr2 Peninsula Handicap, Master Of My Fate not only showed that he was a top notch performer, but he also defeated the likes of subsequent Gr1 J&B Met winner Hill Fifty Four, champion Hot Ticket, as well as the Grade 1 winners Jeppe’s Reef and Seal.
He is a son of seven times champion sire Jet
Master, whose 69 stakes winners include no fewer than 21 individual Grade 1 winners. Jet Master’s dominance as a stallion can be viewed in the fact that from 2007-2011, the Cape’s most famous horse-race, the G1 J&B Met, was won by a son or daughter of the Rakeen horse.
Jet Master’s son, Master Of My Fate, a half brother to the stakes winning filly Justthewayyouare, is out of ill fated champion Promisefrommyheart, South Africa’s Equus Champion 3YO Classic Female of 2003.
Promisefrommyheart, whose victories included the Gr1 SA Fillies Guineas, is a half sister to Grade 1 Majorca Stakes victress Covenant, as well as the Grade 1 placed Secret Heart. The latter made history when becoming the first South African bred mare to breed a Breeders Cup winner. (Secret Heart’s son Pluck, now a popular young sire in Australia, won the Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf in 2010).
Remarkably, Master Of My Fate’s first three dams are all black type winners and producers.
His female line received another boost recently in the form of high class US filly Three Hearts, who is out of Secret Heart, a half sister to Promisefrommyheart. Owned and bred by Team Valor, Three Hearts (by Hat Trick)has won or placed in no fewer than six US stakes races, with her wins including a score in the G3 Red Carpet Hcp.
The photographs in the article are courtesy of Jeremy Nelson