Japan’s Maurice and newcomer Admire Mars to shuttle to Arrowfield Stud in 2021
Shalaa earns fee increase as Snitzel and Dundeel remain unchanged on nine-strong roster
Emerging Japanese sire Maurice (Screen Hero) and Grade 1-winning companion Admire Mars (Daiwa Major) will shuttle to Australia later this year as Arrowfield Stud returns to the Land of the Rising Sun in search of the magic outcross stallion for the country’s Danehill- (Danzig) dominated broodmare population.
Arrowfield Stud yesterday confirmed that Maurice, whose first southern hemisphere-bred two-year-old crop are showing promise, would rejoin its stallion roster after a one-year hiatus caused by the restrictions emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, while also sourcing another Japanese shuttler to accompany him.
The latest major stud to release its service fees, Arrowfield will offer a nine-stallion line-up, led by four-time reigning champion sire Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), whose fee will fee remain unchanged at $165,000. Unchanged fees have also been announced for barnmates Dundeel (High Chaparral) ($66,000), The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) ($66,000) and Castelvecchio (Dundeel) ($33,000).
Pariah (Redoute’s Choice) ($16,500) and Showtime (Snitzel) ($11,000) will also have their fees kept at 2020 levels, but European shuttler Shalaa (Invincible Spirit) has earned a fee increase from $33,000 to $44,000 this year on the back of his strong start with his first crop two-year-olds, which has yielded five stakes-performed juveniles this season.
Maurice, Japan’s current leading second season sire and so far the sire of five Australian-bred first-crop winners, including two stakes-placed juveniles, will also stand for a fee of $44,000, up from $27,500 in 2019.
“He’s a complete outcross for everything that’s down here and he’s showing promise,” Arrowfield Stud chairman John Messara said yesterday.
“We didn’t think his progeny would show much at two, but it might be a sign of things to come when they’re three-year-olds, so we’re very hopeful.
“He stands for a fee over there of AU$100,000 equivalent, so we’re going to stand him for $44,000 here, so that’s a pretty good deal, I’d say.
“He’s shown he can produce two-year-olds and we’ve just had a glimpse of what can happen there and there’s an enormous amount of interest in him.
“His stock are willing, they are strong and the trainers like them. We’ll get more enquiries about him than just about any other horse on our roster.”
Arrowfield’s sole newcomer for 2021, Japan’s champion juvenile Admire Mars, like Maurice, was successful in Hong Kong, bringing down the jurisdiction’s own champion Beauty Generation (Road To Rock) in the 2019 Hong Kong Mile (Gr 1, 1600m).
A winner of the Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) at two and the NHK Mile Cup (Gr 1, 1600m) at three before his international success, Admire Mars will stand for $22,000 in his opening southern hemisphere season after starting his stud career this year at Shadai Stallion Station.
“He’s an interesting horse because he was a champion two-year-old over there and his two Group 1 wins were over a mile and then he came out as a three-year-old and beat the best horse in Hong Kong in the Hong Kong Mile,” Messara said.
“He is totally free of Danzig and Danehill and all that and he’s got some interesting blood running through his veins.
“He’s a nice horse to bring out and he is at a fee that is super commercial, really, for what he has achieved. You look at horses in Australia who have won three Group 1s, and two Group 1s at two, that are at stud and I don’t think you’ll find any around $20,000.”
Admire Mars is out of a Group 3 winner in France, Via Medici (Medicean), and is a half-brother to European stakes winners Via Firenze (Dansili) and Via Pisa (Pivotal), while his own sire Daiwa Major (Sunday Silence) is responsible for six Grade 1 winners and his overall figures demand great respect, according to Messara.
“When you look at the stakes winners over there, you have got to multiply them by two because their ratio to stakes races to overall races is less than half of ours,” he said.
“He has 37 stakes winners, so when you multiply that by two, (a fair comparison is) more like 75 stakes winners in Australia.”
Messara’s long-term investment in Japanese bloodlines, he says, is starting to be recognised by the wider Australasian yearling market after years of shuttling their stallions and also sending mares over to be covered by the late, great Deep Impact (Sunday Silence).
“If you have a look at the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale results, you will see Australians are becoming enamored with Japanese horses now. They’ve understood them,” he said.
“Every time the Japanese travel overseas to compete in other jurisdictions, they really make an impact. Whenever they’ve come to Australia with proper horses, they’ve done the same.
“I think there’s a great underlying respect for Japanese racing and Japanese horses and that was reflected at the Easter sale when you look at the prices for the Maurices, the Just A Ways and all the others that we sold.”
Shalaa to be popular again
Another shuttler on the Arrowfield roster is Shalaa whose appeal has been heightened by the deeds of the Chris Waller-trained juvenile Shaquero, a colt who has won the ATC Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m), the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) and the Pago Pago Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) this season.
As a result of Shalaa’s success of five first-crop winners and four stakes horses, his fee of $44,000 was increased as he prepares for his fifth season at Arrowfield.
While Shalaa warranted a fee increase, Messara said Arrowfield was inclined to be conservative.
“We’ve got a lot of early demand for him and we take a longer term view on all these things,” he said.
“We don’t want to squeeze the lemon too fast (with these stallions) and make sure we continue to get good books for them.
“We let them find their feet and find their way before we get more serious about fees.”
Shalaa covered 170 mares at a fee of $33,000 in 2020.
Status quo for Snitzel
Keeping Australia’s champion sire Snitzel at a fee of $165,000 – he stood for $220,000 in 2019 and 2020 – was the cause of much debate in the Arrowfield Stud office in recent weeks, but again Messara was keen to maintain a conservative approach with the farm’s roster.
This season, Snitzel has sired ten stakes winners and had star New Zealand Group 1-winning two-year-old colt Sword Of State, Saturday’s Arrowfield 3YO Sprint (Gr 2, 1200m) winner Wild Ruler and smart Sydney filly Four Moves Ahead flying the flag for the rising 19-year-old.
“Compared to a lot of the other horses around, he looks cheap at $150,000 (plus GST) and we argued over that,” Messara revealed.
There were those in the camp who felt he was more of a $200,000 horse, but we thought, ‘look, he’s 18, rising 19, $150,000 is a nice figure and it gives people a chance of making a profit at the sales and, occasionally, you get an outstanding price for one like we did this year ($2.5 million at Easter)’.
“It gives breeders a return, that’s the main thing, so we left his fee where it is.”
Arrowfield has backed off on the number of mares being covered by Snitzel in the past two years, serving 141 in 2019 and 150 last year. He covered 172 in 2018 and 216 the year before that.
While Arrowfield is fortunate to have the four-time champion Snitzel on its roster, Messara believes Dundeel, already the sire of five Group 1 winners including sire sons Castelvecchio and the Waikato Stud-based Super Seth, is building towards becoming an elite stallion in his own right.
He has 170 weanlings on the ground and covered 196 mares last year.
“With the weanlings we’ve got and what the mares are carrying, I think we can expect a relative explosion in the next couple of years because we can see from the quality of the mares that it’s had an impact on the quality of the foals in our paddocks,” said Messara.
“I think in two or three years he’s going to be one of the hottest sires in the country given the size and quality of his books which followed on from his Group 1 winners.
“It takes a while to catch up, even Snitzel, he got his four championships when he was 14, 15 and 16 and 17. It can take them a while for the marketplace to catch up to the performances and to follow up with the good books.
“Yearlings of next year, and following on the year after, are going to be the basis of what makes that horse and go right to the top in my view.”
Arrowfield, which has lost the services of the now Yulong Stud-based Written Tycoon (Iglesia) for 2021, has stood more than nine stallions in the past but Messara is “happy with what we’ve got”.
The stud’s stallions and yearling sale results have generated more than $125 million in turnover this season to date and that momentum can flow through to the upcoming mares’ sales.
“We had one of our best years last year and this year’s sales have been a bit of a record for us, so I think it should translate into the breeding sector and that’s why we’ve kept our prices fair to entice people to use our stallions,” he said.
“I have got orders to buy mares for people who want to go to our stallions, but I don’t know if we’re going to be able to buy them because there’s going to be so much competition for the nice mares that are around.
“There’s not that many of them and … they will be interesting sales to attend.”
Arrowfield Stud stallion roster – 2021 (2020)
Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) $165,000 (unchanged)
Dundeel (High Chaparral) $66,000 (unchanged)
The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) $66,000 (unchanged)
Maurice (Screen Hero) $44,000 ($27,500 (in 2019))
Shalaa (Invincible Spirit) $44,000 ($33,000)
Castelvecchio (Dundeel) $33,000 (unchanged)
Admire Mars (Daiwa Major) $22,000 (new)
Pariah (Redoute’s Choice) $16,500 (unchanged)
Showtime (Snitzel) $11,000 (unchanged)
*all fees inclusive of GST.