The Brisbane Winter Carnival sees the last of the three year old classics for the season and the winners this year would have been hard to predict, but that’s what makes racing interesting so let’s take a look at the pedigrees and consider that if you want to breed a classic three year-old there is only one stallion standing in Australia this spring that has sired a Classic winner this season.
G1 Queensland Oaks(2200m) was won by rank outsider Socks Nation, who credited her sire Sioux Nation (USA) with his first Group I winner worldwide, read about her here.
A Group I winning juvenile by Scat Daddy, Sioux Nation (USA) had one season at stud in Victoria for Swettenham Stud, but the Coolmore shuttler struggled for support covering 54 mares at a fee of $17,600 and the resulting crop produced 39 foals.
21 of those foals have raced producing 15 winners and in addition Socks Nation, Sioux Nation has another Aussie Group winner in Archo Nacho, who has been sold to Hong Kong. 53.8% of that crop have raced and the winner to runner strike rate of 71.4% is impressive when you compare to his peers as we did in this story last week looking at second crop sires in terms of their first crop of three year-olds, read the story here.
Big question a lot of breeders will aske themselves is, should Sioux Nation have been given greater respect?
He remains on the Coolmore roster in Ireland standing this year at a fee of €27,500 with his overall stats now 14 stakes-winners with 6.3% SW to runner.
Sioux Nation is only half of the pedigree that produced Socks Nation and the other half is just as interesting as she has delivered fresh G1 success for an old family that is no stranger to success at the elite level and has been nurtured for many years by Ian Millard.
She is the sixth Group I winner for Commands as a broodmare sire and her dam Tahnee Tango traces in tail female line to Ian Millard’s blue hen Pride of Tahnee, who produced three Group I winners in Shogun Lodge, Referral and Singing the Blues.
The Group I Queensland Derby (2400m) was won in spectacular fashion by Warmonger (NZ), who also credited his sire War Decree (USA) with his first Group I winner, read about him here.
Warmonger comes from second first crop of Inglewood Stud’s War Decree (USA), a Group winning juvenile by champion US sire War Front, a stallion not noted for his stayers. Warmonger is his second stakes-winner and he runs at 50% winners to runners standing at a fee of $7,000.
On the female side of his pedigree we find the obvious source of Warmonger’s stamina with his dam by champion sire Savabeel and his third and fourth dams are by two iconic Kiwi staying sires in Noble Bijou (USA) and Mellay (GB), so we shouldn’t be surprised that Warmonger was able to blast his opposition and win by 10 lengths at a classic trip.
Warmonger is the fifth Group I winner as a broodmare sire for Savabeel, who is making big inroads in this area siring the dams of 12 stakes-winners this season including another Group I winner in Hong Kong trained Beauty Eternal.
Australian 3YO G1 Classic Winners this Season
Race |
Winner |
Sire |
G1 ATC Australian Derby (2400m) |
Riff Rocket |
American Pharoah (USA) |
G1 ATC Australian Oaks (2400m) |
Autumn Angel |
The Autumn Sun |
G1 VRC Derby (2500m |
Riff Rocket |
American Pharoah (USA) |
G1VRC Oaks (2500m) |
Zardozi |
Kingman |
G1 SAJC Australasian Oaks (2000m) |
Vibrant Sun |
The Autumn Sun |
G1 SAJC South Australian Derby (2500m) |
Coco Sun |
The Autumn Sun |
G1 BRC Queensland Derby (2400m) |
Warmonger (NZ) |
War Decree (USA) |
G1 BRC Queensland Oaks (2200m) |
Socks Nation |
Sioux Nation (USA) |