Breeders show hand with first season sires
Louis Mihalyka believes first season sires are not the breeder safety net that they once were, but the Laurel Oak Bloodstock principal and many of his fellow commercial breeders will be backing the freshman stallions in quality and numbers when the 2022 season gets underway on the first day of spring.
Coolmore has dual Group 1 winner Home Affairs (I Am Invincible) and St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni), a five-time elite–level scorer in Europe, as its new drawcards while Darley has headliners Palace Pier (Kingman) and Pinatubo (Shamardal) as well as Victor Ludorum (Shamardal) as high-profile shuttlers.
Newgate Farm has added to the depth of its colonial speed stallion roster through Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner Stay Inside (Extreme Choice), Wild Ruler (Snitzel), Profiteer (Capitalist) and Tiger Of Malay (Extreme Choice).
Milburn Creek’s John Muir will be supporting the unproven Home Affairs, Palace Pier, Pinatubo and Wild Ruler with his high-calibre band of broodmares this year, confident that the Darley and Coolmore shuttlers have the race records and pedigrees to make an impact in Australia.
“When I started breeding horses many, many years ago, if you got a Listed winner or a Group winner (from the northern hemisphere), you’d go ‘wow’ but now we’re spoiled with horses who have won three, four, five or six Group 1 races. We take it for granted now, but they’re well–credentialled shuttle stallions that we have got access to,” NSW Southern Highlands breeder Muir said.
“We have also got a mare for Home Affairs and we’ve got four mares going to St Mark’s Basilica. When you consider the stallion (fee) hikes here this year, when they announced him at $44,000, I thought he was excellent value for money.”
Torryburn Stud’s John and Brett Cornish are sending five mares to Home Affairs in his first season and the attachment is understandable, having bred the colt and sold him for $875,000 to Coolmore’s Tom Magnier at the Covid-impacted 2020 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
Home Affairs, a son of Australia’s 2021-22 champion sire-in-waiting I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit), will stand for an introductory fee of $110,000 (inc GST).
“We know what he looks like, we know what he looked like as a foal and we can justify it (service fee),” Torryburn Stud manager Mel Copelin said.
“It might be a bit high for some, but I think if he throws what we think he will, then they’ll be good looking types. That’s the most important thing, you have to have the physical to get the money (at the yearling sales).”
In all, Torryburn will send five mares to Home Affairs this year and Copelin is counting down the days until the breeding season begins on September 1.
“Obviously we’ve got that connection, but his pedigree’s outstanding. It’s Russian Revolution’s family, the mare line is just a blue hen and the other factor with him is, anything that you’ve bred to I Am Invincible that’s worked really well, you can send mares to (Home Affairs) to get three-quarter relations to,” she said.
“Three of the five mares have had I Am Invincible foals previously, including The Pinnacle, who we got $1 million for her I Am Invincible colt at the Easter sale this year.”
Mihalyka has long been a pedigree buff, placing immense emphasis on the compatibility of the mares with the chosen stallion, and he would happily support any of the higher profile first season stallions if he had a mare who suited a specific young sire.
“For me, type is less (of a factor) than it is for a lot of people because we’ve found over time that it hasn’t had a major bearing (on the physique of the foal),” he said.
“We’ve got one mare that is tending to throw horses who are just too big, especially being a very commercial mare, so we’re sending her to Stay Inside and that is very much a type-based decision, but otherwise it is just one of many factors.”
Mihalyka is also backing fellow Newgate Farm first season sire Profiteer, a stallion Laurel Oak Bloodstock bought a share in prior to his 2021 Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m) victory, as well as another son of Capitalist (Written Tycoon), Kia Ora’s Group 1 winner Captivant.
“At the end of the day, I go back to his Todman placing, which was when he was allowed to run and probably at his peak relative to his peers,” he said.
“That day proved to me that he was amongst the best of them because he ran second to Anamoe when looking like he was home, third in the race was Home Affairs and fourth in the race was Stay Inside.
“They’ve all finished side by side and the next week Stay Inside wins the Slipper on a bog heavy track which suited him and didn’t suit Profiteer. If it’s the other way around, Profiteer’s standing for $77,000, that’s just how fickle the game is.”
Widden’s Oakleigh Plate (Gr 1, 1100m) winner Portland Sky (Deep Field) ($27,500) is another first season sire in the sights of Mihalyka and his clients, as are St Mark’s Basilica and Wild Ruler.
“We’ve got two mares going to St Mark’s Basilica and we’ve got four going to Portland Sky who just seems to suit pedigree wise and commercially for a lot of mares in that price range,” he said.
“We’re encouraged by the fact that he’s a three-year-old who won the Oakleigh Plate and the history shows that it is normally a good guide to stallions because the last four colts who won it were Fastnet Rock, Snitzel, Starspangledbanner and Russian Revolution, although that’s not the reason we’re using him.
“He just happens to suit on pedigree and dollar wise for certain mares that we’ve got.”
As for the commercial nature of supporting first season sires, Mihalyka said: “The market gravitates to those (first season sires) as the second tier down from the proven stallions. They dominate the marketplace, the top-priced proven stallions, and a lot of trainers won’t buy first season sires or won’t over-purchase first season sires because they’ve been prone to disappointment.
“It’s really changed in the past five, six or seven years where a lot of the big stables just steer clear of first season sires or won’t fall into big prices for them.
“They are still the next tier down from a commercial safety point of view over and above paying the big dollars for the proven stallions.”
While yearling prices have reached an all-time high in Australia, Muir’s experience tells him breeding horses is a lot harder than it looks to the casual industry observer.
“If you’re being perfectly honest, it takes a bloody good yearling to make over $100,000. Forgetting about the service fees, it costs you $40,000 to raise the horse to get to the sales, on top of that is the cost of nominating them along with all the associated fees, then you throw your service on top of it, it’s not easy,” he said.
“Mother Nature can be very unkind sometimes. You can have the right mare and the right stallion with bad legs and x-rays and so forth, then you’re in trouble.”
Outside the proven sires, such as Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), I Am Invincible, Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and So You Think (High Chaparral), Muir still turns to first season sires to try and maximise a return on his breeding investment.
“My manager Scott Holcombe and I think the same: first season sires or proven sires,” he said.
“But I must say I’ve had a bit of luck selling by going to a stallion at the ‘wrong time’. I’m gamer than Scott and I’ll take a punt. He’s a bit more conservative than me.”
In Victoria, Rosemont Stud’s Group 3-winning sprinter Extreme Warrior, a son of boom sire Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), has already garnered breeders’ interest, Swettenham Stud has shuttler Wooded, the son of Coolmore shuttler Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), and Woodside Park Stud has Delaware (Frankel). Glen Eden Stud last week announced Finance Tycoon (Written Tycoon) as well.
In Queensland, Aquis Farm has Jonker (Spirit Of Boom) and Glenfiddich (Fastnet Rock) as new additions to their respective stallion rosters and Lyndhurst Stud Farm has Barbaric (I Am Invincible).
In New Zealand, Cambridge Stud has Group 1-winning juvenile Sword Of State (Snitzel) going to stud while Mapperley Stud is standing Armory (Galileo), a Group 2-winning, Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m)-placed European whose Australian racing career was aborted before it started due to injury.