The Australian breeding season begins officially on September 1 with the stallions set to start covering after midnight this Saturday, but there is a little calm before the storm and last weekend across the Hunter Valley all the major farms welcomed visitors to their annual stallion parades and Breednet hit the road to see the best stallions in the country.
Absent this year and sorely missed were The Autumn Sun at Arrowfield and Too Darn Hot (GB) at Darley with both stallions coming out of last season on the crest of a winning wave that would have seen them cover full books. Timing is everything and for those guys this was a bad year to be unavailable.
Breeders’ Plate was a topic that seemed to feature in quite a few stallion spiels, apparently several trainers have this year’s winner of it in their stable, but only one of them will be right!
Casino Prince was one of the oldest (21) and least expensive ($5,500) sires we saw in four days of travelling and eight farms, but he doesn’t know that and what a great horse he’s been.
A Group I winner and Group I producing sire, whose son All Too Hard is also on the Vinery roster, Casino Prince had pep in his step and was obviously enjoying the crowd, God love him!
Drone overhead in the air at Kia Ora and was obviously up there not on a spying mission from another farm, but to take some pretty good footage for their post-parade social media, nicely done!
Earthquake, well there’s a new one for the A to Z! We had not one but two up there this year that were reported on the nightly news and while I can’t say I noticed them, plenty of people did with pictures apparently moving on the walls at Segenhoe and the lawn in front of the offices at Newgate producing a ripple.
Fact checkers - Presidential debates have been a hot topic this year for those of us that are aware of news other than that involving racing and breeding. Listening to the spiel on various stallions at various farms did make me think that the fact checkers would have a field day if let loose in the Hunter Valley.
Geoff Evers – Last Wednesday I wrote a story about a very talented Supido filly called Shohisha that won on debut at Warwick Farm and has her trainer David Payne talking G1 Flight Stakes aspirations. Her owner breeder is Geoff Evers, who I was lucky enough to meet and a more entertaining man you will not find as you would expect of someone that has companies called Dodgy Investments and Shonky Investments.
Geoff has had four Group I second place-getters, but never a G1 winner, so I’ll be cheering Shohisha on if she makes it all the way to her grand final!
Home Affairs (Coolmore), Hawaii Five Oh (Vinery) and King’s Gambit (Newgate) are three young sire sons of I Am invincible that have the potential to propel the reigning champion sire to new heights as a sire of sires.
I Am Invincible was again basking in the glory of a third Champion Australian Sire title and there was the usual big crowd at Yarraman Park on Friday evening to celebrate this remarkable stallion that delivered life changing money in his early years to so many.
Jacquinot is letting down into a lovely horse and Widden Stud have a tradition of parading a nice foal for their second season horses and this year it was a colt (first foal) from All Sassed Up.
Kick Ass Coffee – K is always a tricky letter, but not this year. Leaving Scone to head to Coolmore on Sunday morning we stopped at Aberdeen for a quick coffee enroute and discovered the Kick Ass Coffee van where it’s Cash Only, unless you look really caffeine deprived and needy… and then it’s for free!
Lunch at Widden this year was in a new location for the very first time with the marquee on the homestead lawn relocated across the road to the stallion barn area. Same warm hospitality and great food courtesy of Lance, Katie and their hard working team.
Make or break time has arrived for Arrowfield shuttler Maurice (Jpn) as parade host Susan Archer explained. His career in Australia has come in two parts - three seasons covering decreasing in size modest books and then a year off before a triumphant return to increased numbers and quality with the beginning of part two set to unfold this season with over 120 juveniles to run for him followed by two strong crops conceived at $82,500.
You don’t need a crystal ball to figure out he might be very good value this season at a fee of $55,000.
Newgate Farm looked like this when we arrived for the stallion parades in 2017 and in the eight years since then a lot has happened and Newgate now stand more stalllions than any other farm in the Hunter Valley with 17 for broodmare owners to consider this year.
Their roster from 2017 is below and only two of 13 are still in service with Newgate for 2024.
Newgate Fees 2017 (all are inclusive GST)
Capitalist - $55,000 NEW – Book Full
Criterion – Private
Deep Field - $22,000
Dissident - $33,000
Eurozone - $11,000
Extreme Choice - $38,500 NEW
Flying Artie - $38,500 NEW
Foxwedge - $22,000
Sizzling - $16,500
Super One - $11,000
The Factor (USA) - $11,000
Wandjina - $27,500
Winning Rupert - $22,000 NEW
Owner / breeders that operate in the lower area of the market are becoming a dying breed as online sales overtake yearling sales as a preferred source of horses for many country / provincial trainers. Breeders that used to sell cheaper yearlings have found that market ever shrinking and getting tougher and tougher forcing them to race horses themselves which is often an unaffordable option.
Rather than breeding horses that may never be tried, they opt not to breed at all, making it hard for studs to offer a full spectrum of sires ranging in price to suit a market that may no longer exist.
Some sort of incentive program aimed at rewarding the owner breeder for producing a horse that can win a race might offer hope for the future.
Paella there are so many good reasons to finish a weekend of stud visits with one to Coolmore and it’s the paella!
Question – If the experts know exactly what it takes for a colt to become a champion sire, why do so many studs stand stallions that feature the brand of another farm? Finding the needle in the haystack is always harder than you think and sometimes it’s sitting right under your nose. Jacquinot at Widden has the Coolmore brand, Tassort at Newgate has the Darley brand, Russian Revolution at Newgate has the Vinery brand, Snitzel at Arrowfield has the Yarraman brand, Star Turn at Vinery has the Widden brand, Artorius at Newgate has the Vinery brand, Pierro at Coolmore has the Darley brand, Exceedance at Vinery has the Newgate brand and Wild Ruler at Newgate has the Kia Ora brand.
Retired from stud duties after 19 years, Fastnet Rock was enjoying his twilight years away from the hustle and bustle of parade day at Coolmore this year, but as you drive in it’s impossible not to be impressed by his fabulous statue which is unmistakably him.
Statistically, Extreme Choice has the best SW to runner strike rate of all active sires in Australia with an impressive 12% SW to runner. Read more about him here.
The Thoroughbred in Scone is a great local pub that invariably attracts visitors in town for the parades and an interesting patron on Friday night was NSW politician Mark Latham, who was most active at the recent NSW parliamentary hearing on the possible sale of Rosehill. He has a genuine interest in racing and breeding which is encouraging to see from someone in government.
Ups and downs has been the story for Pride of Dubai, who covered 873 mares in his first four years at stud and then just 84 in the next two before enjoying a resurgence last year to cover 102. A dual Group I winning 2YO by Street Cry (IRE), he was expected to get juveniles, but his real lasting legacy is his ability to get serious elite performers as older horses such as Pride of Jenni, Bella Nipotina and Dubai Honour.
His $22,000 fee is unbeatable value.
Versatile is what Darley’s mighty champion Anamoe should be as a sire with the Cox Plate winning son of Street Boss (USA) settling into his new life and presenting in great order on Saturday to close their parade. A perfect racehorse with an elite pedigree, Anamoe is a powerful package that covers the ground in a way you don’t see very often.
Waxing lyrical is something James Bester does better than anyone and when it comes to So You Think it’s tough to disagree with his claim he is ,“The most beautiful thoroughbred of them all.”
X or Twitter as we used to call it has a powerful hold over the bloodstock and racing world, so if you want to know who’s who in the zoo and get your message out there you need to have a presence, no matter how much you might dislike social media you can’t afford to be invisible.
Young old people. My travelling partner looked around at one of the parades and said to me, “These people are all old,” to which I said, “We are old,” to which she said, “We are young old, they are old, old!!” Big question is – are you young old or old old? Am thinking it’s a state of mind!
Zoustar has had a glorious couple of years working his way up to a point where the Widden flagbearer is right there to challenge the old guard of Snitzel and I Am invincible as Australia’s best stallion and he’s also learning to love carrots at the end of the parade as did his much loved predecessor Sebring.
