Oakland Park excited by Shooting To Win addition
Former Darley stallion Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor) will stand at Oakland Park Stud in Western Australia after a deal was concluded to secure the promising young sire.
Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winner Shooting To Win stood his first seven seasons at Darley’s Kelvinside property in New South Wales, but was retired from their roster ahead of the 2022 breeding season due to ongoing injury issues.
However, after a prolonged period of rehabilitation, the stallion will be back available to breeders and Oaklands Park Stud principal Neville Duncan expressed his delight to welcome Shooting To Win to their roster in WA.
“He’s a Danehill-free stallion who’s doing a pretty damn good job. We were looking for that outcross stallion and he’s done particularly well in the west with his stock,” Duncan told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“He’s had an ongoing process of rehabilitation and at this point of time he’s completely sound. He’s had some surgery in that area which has been a success.
“It’s been a four or five-month process. It doesn’t affect his ability to cover and it doesn’t affect his fertility, so once that was put to bed, which has been part of the delay to have things squeaky clean, we were happy to sign off on it.
“We have a longstanding relationship with Darley, so it wasn’t really too much of a difficult decision to make.”
Shooting To Win, a brother to burgeoning Newgate Farm stallion Deep Field, has enjoyed a successful season with his progeny on the track.
In February he landed his first Group 1 winner courtesy of Mascarpone, who struck in the WFA Classic (Gr 1, 1600m) at Otaki in New Zealand, while he has added a further three stakes winners this season to his total tally of seven.
The Peter and Paul Snowden-trained Ranges claimed a maiden stakes success during the Brisbane winter carnival, while the Chris Waller-trained Kubrick won the Bernborough Plate (Listed, 1600m) on Boxing Day.
His Western Australian-raced progeny include stakes placegetters Dom To Shoot, Charleton Eddie and Fatale Femme.
From four crops of racing age, Shooting To Win is running at a stakes winners to runners ratio of 2.9 per cent. He will stand the upcoming season for a fee of $9,900 (inc GST).
“In Australia, and I only look at his Australian stats because that’s the market that we breed for, he and his brother Deep Field are line balling their percentage of stakes horses they are producing,” Duncan said.
“We weren’t too worried about his appeal [in WA], we thought that would be strong. We’ve only just released the information on him and, unusually for the west, the phone’s been ringing hot, so we’re pleased about that.”
Shooting To Win covered just 36 mares in 2021, however he has 117 rising two-year-olds on the ground to add to 82 juveniles this season.
Duncan cited the state’s Platinum scheme and Westspeed Epona, launched in 2020 as a credit scheme to breeders, as a key influencer in their decision to sign for the stallion.
“His upside is really good as well with good numbers coming through, so from that point of view we’re pretty buoyant. He certainly won’t be going backwards, put it that way,” Duncan said. “We’ll be looking at around the 60 to 90 mark as a really good book for him.
“It’s crazy good in WA at the moment. There’s lots of support through various schemes, including the government scheme through RWWA that offers a credit against breeding.
“We have the Platinum scheme and that was one of the reasons we were very interested in Shooting To Win.”
Shooting To Win will stand alongside Oakland Park’s resident stallion Sessions (Lonhro), who has made a solid start to his career at stud, boasting a winners-to-runners strike-rate of 80.3 per cent.
Sessions covered 121 mares in 2020 at a fee of $3,850 (inc GST) and last year attracted a book of 59 mares when upped to $8,800 (inc GST). He will stand the upcoming season for a fee of $11,000 (inc GST).