Flying Spur’s special Saturday
On one of Australian racing’s biggest days, the influence of the great Flying Spur shone through, not only through the winner of The Everest, but in the pedigrees of three Group 1 winners.
The 1995 Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) proved a frustrating end to a frustrating three-year-old spring for Flying Spur (Danehill).
In his seventh start in a campaign which yielded just one win – the Peter Pan Stakes (Gr 2, 1500m) – the previous season’s Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) winner started third favourite for the Caulfield three-year-old feature behind Our Maizcay (Maizcay) and Octagonal (Zabeel).
Nothing went right for Flying Spur as he missed the start slightly and got caught wide and back in a race dominated by those on pace and won impressively by the favourite. Flying Spur beat just one of his nine rivals home and was sent to the paddock with plans for better things in the autumn.
As it turned out, the autumn yielded two further Group 1 victories for Flying Spur, franking his credentials for a career at Arrowfield Stud, whose colours he carried, and with whom he’d create quite a formidable legacy as a sire.
Saturday marked the 28th anniversary of that 1995 Caulfield Guineas, and another ringing endorsement of his legacy, with Flying Spur featuring in the fourth generation or closer of the winners of the Guineas, the Might And Power (Gr 1, 2000m), the King Charles III Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and The Everest (1200m).
Saturday’s big race winners to feature Flying Spur in their pedigrees
| Horse | Race | Role |
| Griff | Caulfield Guineas | Damsire of damsire |
| Alligator Blood | Might And Power | Great-grandsire |
| Fangirl | King Charles III Stakes | Damsire of the sire |
| Think About It | The Everest | Damsire |
| Front Page | The Kosciuszko | Grandsire |
He had numbers on his side in the Caulfield Guineas, with two runners out of mares by his son Magnus and another out of a mare by his grandson All Too Hard (Casino Prince). Most significantly, he is also the ‘damsire of the damsire’ of the surprise winner Griff (Trapeze Artist), who is out of a Sebring (More Than Ready) mare.
Sebring is one of 16 Group 1 winners for Flying Spur as a broodmare sire and has proven one of his most influential ongoing influences in terms of his bloodlines. The late Widden Stud sire has eight Group 1 winners of his own, including the victrix of Saturday’s inaugural $5 million King Charles III Stakes, Fangirl.
Flying Spur’s grandson All Too Hard is another successful avenue for his bloodlines. On Saturday, his superstar weight-for-age performer Alligator Blood added a seventh Group 1 to his resume with a resounding success in the Might And Power.
But the biggest success for Flying Spur came in Australia’s richest race, The Everest (1200m), as Think About It (So You Think) added another chapter to his own remarkable story as well as that of his sire and damsire.
It may have not been a Group 1, but the Joe Pride-trained five-year-old proved himself the best sprinter in the country with an 11th win from his 12th start, taking his career prize-money to a tick short of $11 million.
In the process, Think About It catapulted his own sire, So You Think (High Chaparral), to the top of the Australian sires’ table, re-affirming the extraordinary versatility of the Coolmore-based stallion.
The win also took Flying Spur to the top of the broodmare sires’ table ahead of his close relation Encosta De Lago (Fairy King). Encosta De Lago and Redoute’s Choice have won the past eight Australian broodmare sires titles between them and it has been very rare in that time for one of them not to be on top in that category.
But it is not surprising to see Flying Spur somewhere near the pointy end. His daughters have been remarkably consistent producers of winners over a very long period of time. In the past 14 completed Australian seasons, he has finished top six in the broodmare sires’ table.
When Flying Spur first entered the top six in 2009-10, above him were Rory’s Jester, Last Tycoon, Zabeel, Snippets and Danehill. The only one of that quintet currently inside the Top 50 broodmare sires in Australia is Zabeel (currently 16th).
Progeny of Flying Spur’s daughters have now earned just short of $240 million and include 109 stakes winners. Think About It is the leading prize-money earner among those horses and is one of two Group 1 winners by So You Think out of Flying Spur mares.
The Everest winner wasn’t the only son of a Flying Spur mare to have a milestone day on Saturday as Telemon Thoroughbreds’ freshman sire Sun City (Zoustar), who is out of Roulettes (Flying Spur), marked his first winner thanks to Mishani Suspect at Eagle Farm.
Flying Spur as broodmare sire in Australia by season since 2009-10
| Season | Position | Winners | Wins | SW | Prize-money |
| 2023-24* | 1 | 59 | 71 | 1 | $10,965,620 |
| 2022-23 | 5 | 191 | 297 | 6 | $22,489,202 |
| 2021-22 | 5 | 204 | 334 | 11 | $18,702,889 |
| 2020-21 | 6 | 216 | 340 | 7 | $14,619,393 |
| 2019-20 | 4 | 213 | 336 | 5 | $14,689,620 |
| 2018-19 | 3 | 247 | 389 | 10 | $16,131,786 |
| 2017-18 | 4 | 217 | 352 | 9 | $13,680,289 |
| 2016-17 | 6 | 194 | 303 | 7 | $9,208,083 |
| 2015-16 | 4 | 195 | 307 | 9 | $11,765,906 |
| 2014-15 | 4 | 189 | 306 | 8 | $9,521,898 |
| 2013-14 | 5 | 178 | 285 | 9 | $8,194,021 |
| 2012-13 | 4 | 193 | 320 | 11 | $8,839,341 |
| 2011-12 | 3 | 156 | 256 | 10 | $6,755,165 |
| 2010-11 | 6 | 127 | 204 | 5 | $5,633,252 |
| 2009-10 | 6 | 112 | 183 | 7 | $6,124,649 |
Griff, meanwhile, became the second Group 1 winner to feature Flying Spur in that ‘damsire of the damsire’ role, the other being On The Bubbles (Brazen Beau), who is also out of a Sebring mare.
The success of the role that Flying Spur plays in Fangirl’s pedigree, ‘the damsire of the sire’, is almost entirely sourced through Sebring, who represents 82 of the 83 stakes winners.
Given the above success, it is somewhat surprising that there are only four active male-line descendants of Flying Spur who have produced stakes winners as sires, Casino Prince, All Too Hard, Jet Spur and Shaft, and eight active descendants of this nature in Australia.
The recent passing of Magnus, who is Flying Spur’s leading sire son when it comes to stakes winners (28), winners (526) and Group 1 winners (four), was a reminder of the success that has been sewn from comparatively few opportunities for Flying Spur. On Saturday, Magnus’s son, the Matthew Dale-trained Front Page, won the $2 million Kosciuszko (1200m), for the second straight year.
All Too Hard is of course closely related to Magnus. Not only is he by Flying Spur’s Group 1-winning son Casino Prince but he is also out of Helsinge (Desert Sun), Magnus’s half-sister.
The Vinery Stud resident, whose eighth crop hit the track this season, is set to soon surpass Magnus’s statistical record, with 445 winners, 23 stakes winners and four Group 1 winners.
For all of Magnus’s virtues as a sire, he, and for that matter Flying Spur, have never had a horse as good as Alligator Blood. This column recently pointed out he is one of just four Australian horses since 2000 to win Group 1 races at three and again at seven.
But he is more than just a story of longevity. With a seventh Group 1 win on Saturday, he joins a club which includes Makybe Diva (Desert King), Grand Armee (Hennessy), Buffering (Mossman) and the horse after whom Saturday’s race was named, Might And Power (Zabeel).
Stakes-producing male-line descendants of Flying Spur
| Stallion | Runners | Winners | SWs | G1w |
| Magnus | 730 | 526 | 28 | 4 |
| All Too Hard | 647 | 445 | 23 | 4 |
| Casino Prince | 613 | 433 | 23 | 2 |
| San Luis | 95 | 47 | 4 | 0 |
| Jet Spur | 572 | 391 | 9 | 0 |
| Shaft | 250 | 162 | 2 | 0 |
| Primus | 194 | 85 | 2 | 0 |
| Krupt | 129 | 84 | 2 | 0 |