Covering 622 mares in his 4 seasons at stud prior to his untimely death in
2013, he has delivered outstanding results with 20 individual stakes winners,
including 6 Group One winners, and a winner to runner ratio of 67%. Interestingly, at the corresponding period of their stud career, Northern Meteor is better performed than his sire, Encosta de Lago, having produced 20 stakes winners (13 Group winners) to Encosta de Lago's 16 (8 Group winners).
In addition, Encosta de Lago had only produced 4 Group 1 winners whereas Northern Meteor has produced 6. Further, Northern Meteor's stakes winners to runners ratio is 6.5%, whilst Encosta de Lago's was 6.1%.
The future implications of all of this for Northern Meteor could be significant with Encosta de Lago being crowned leading broodmare sire for 2015/16, breaking the private war to this title between Danehill and Zabeel for many seasons.
Consequently, it is no surprise that breeders have flocked to Northern Meteor's sire sons who are in significant demand.
To this point in time five of Northern Meteor's sons are at stud and a sixth will join the ranks in 2016. Eurozone, Zoustar and Fighting Sun commenced stud duties in 2014, Deep Field and Shooting To Win in 2015, and the freshman Sports Edition will stand in Victoria for the forthcoming breeding season.
Northern Meteor's sons have had no shortage of support, during the 2014 and 2015 breeding seasons, Zoustar ($44,000) covered books of 184 and 156 respectively, Eurozone ($13,750) 167 and 127, and Fighting Sun 147 and 151.
Deep Field ($22,000) and Shooting To Win ($38,500) commenced stud duties in 2015 covering 257 and 154 mares respectively.
Based on advertised service fees, the collective income generated by these sons of Northern Meteor from the 2015 breeding season alone is upwards of $15 million.
This phenomenon has now graduated to Magic Millions and Inglis where earlier this year weanlings by Zoustar lead the charge averaging in excess of $100,000 with his two top lots each bringing $250,000. Both Eurozone and Fighting Sun weanlings produced top lots of $75,000 and $65,000 respectively.
Northern Meteor may well have had his career cut short, but his influence lives on through his sons who may well be about to write another page in the biographies of both Northern Meteor and Encosta de Lago.
