Ongoing quality proves anything but elusive
After a successful Saturday where his son won the Memsie Stakes and his half-brother won the Tramway Stakes, By The Numbers looks at Bullbars and his own influential sire Elusive Quality.
When Darley ramped-up its investment in Australia in 2003, standing ten stallions on its newly acquired Hunter Valley property, Kelvinside, topping the roster was a rising star of American breeding.
Elusive Quality (Gone West) was never quite an elite racehorse – he was good enough to win multiple times at Grade 3 level on both turf and dirt – however, as a sire, he was from the very top drawer.
He arrived in Australia off the back of siring 11 stakes winners from his first American crop and debuted at Kelvinside at $82,500, the fourth highest fee of any sire in Australia that year.
Within two years, after his second-crop son Smarty Jones catapulted him to even greater prominence by winning two of the three legs of the American Triple Crown, Elusive Quality’s fee had increased to $110,000. He was the third most expensive stallion in Australia, behind local stars Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) and Encosta De Lago (Fairy King), despite the fact his oldest Australian progeny had yet to hit the track.
His first Australian-bred crop didn’t quite make the same mark as they did in the northern hemisphere, but did yield four stakes winners, highlighted by Group 1 winner Camarilla.
Elusive Quality’s subsequent Australian crops would produce three and two stakes winners respectively, while his fourth crop, would yield just one stakes winner from 60 foals.
That stakes winner was a colt named Bullbars. He carried the Darley colours for Peter Snowden during his racing career and in 2011 won a CS Hayes Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m) and ran a place as favourite in the Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
The autumn of 2011 was a big one for Elusive Quality, Darley and Snowden, as Sepoy – from his penultimate Australian crop – became the first horse in 22 years to win both of Australia’s leading two-year-old races, the Blue Diamond Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) and the Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m).
It was also a very important autumn for the dam side of Bullbars’ pedigree as his half-brother Helmet (Exceed And Excel) claimed both the Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and the Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) before going on to win the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) in the spring, stamping his progress to the Darley barn.
While he was in the middle of one of the hottest pedigrees in Australia, for Bullbars, the family competition and that narrow defeat in the Australian Guineas meant he had to go elsewhere to make his name as a stallion.
He was sold to stand at Highview Stud in New Zealand, just as another half-brother, Epaulette (Commands), a future dual Group 1 winner and Darley stallion, was emerging.
On Saturday, just over 20 years to the day since his sire Elusive Quality began the first of his six breeding seasons in Australia, Bullbars was again at the centre of one of the hottest families in Australian bloodstock.
His half-brother Pericles (Street Boss), one of five stakes winners from their extraordinary dam Accessories (Singspiel), won the Tramway Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) at Randwick.
But it was in the day’s Group 1 feature, the Memsie Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield, won by his son Mr Brightside, where the Bullbars’ story turned the page on its latest feature chapter.
While he may have not been afforded the same opportunities at stud as Sepoy or either of his half-brothers Helmet or Epaulette, Bullbars has sired a genuine star of the track, who before Saturday, had already won two Doncasters (Gr 1, 1600m) and an All-Star Mile (1600m) for Lindsay Park.
One of just seven Group 1-producing sons of Elusive Quality, Bullbars will stand for $9,900 at Orange Court in South Australia in 2023. He has had just 101 runners from his seven crops to the track. From those runners have come 64 winners, three stakes winners, including his triple Group 1-winning flagbearer.
Group 1-winning descendant sire sons of Elusive Quality
| Sire | Runners | Winners | SW | GW | G1w |
| Quality Road | 743 | 543 | 74 | 35 | 15 |
| Elusive City | 1210 | 758 | 56 | 21 | 5 |
| Raven’s Pass | 496 | 317 | 39 | 15 | 4 |
| Sepoy | 735 | 420 | 22 | 11 | 2 |
| Smarty Jones | 705 | 510 | 31 | 11 | 1 |
| Chronnos | 35 | 29 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| Bullbars | 101 | 64 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
In comparison, Sepoy, who went to stud in the same year, and shuttled to both hemispheres, has had 735 runners, 420 winners and 22 stakes winners, two of which have been Group 1 winners.
As for Bullbars’ half-brothers, Helmet has had 508 winners for 18 stakes winners and one Group 1 winner, while Epaulette has had three Group 1 winners from his 19 stakes winners and 371 winners.
But in an industry which is driven so much by fashion and form, a stallion’s career can be fickle. While he has had nowhere near the opportunities, Bullbars’ stud career has lasted longer than Sepoy, who was pensioned by Darley in 2021, while both of his half-brothers, Helmet and Epaulette, are lost to Australia, having been exported to the UK and Turkey respectively in 2017 and 2021.
Sire records of sons of Accessories
| Stallion | Foals | Runners | Winners | SW | GW | G1w | Prize-money ($AU) |
| Helmet | 1021 | 826 | 508 | 18 | 9 | 1 | $70,748,370 |
| Epaulette | 864 | 630 | 371 | 19 | 12 | 3 | $37,479,834 |
| Bullbars | 173 | 101 | 64 | 3 | 3 | 1 | $14,940,817 |
Bullbars may be his last active son at stud in Australia, but Elusive Quality’s influence remains strong at Darley’s Kelvinside through Camarilla’s grandson Bivouac (Exceed And Excel), whose first crop are yearlings. Another of her grandsons, Encryption (Lonhro), stands at Eureka Stud in Queensland.
Elusive Quality’s first-crop daughter Listen Here is the dam of former Darley stallion and now Oakland Park resident Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor) as well as his brother Deep Field, who made a major mark at Newgate before he was pensioned from duties this year. Deep Field, in turn, has three sons at stud already in Portland Sky, Cosmic Force and Aysar.
Twin Hills Stud’s Peltzer (So You Think) and Oakwood Farm’s Dracarys (Snitzel) are out of Elusive Quality mares. Swettenham Stud’s Wooded (Wootton Bassett) is out of a daughter of Elusive Quality’s son Elusive City, as is Kitchwin Hills’ Dubious (Not A Single Doubt), while Leneva Park’s Fierce Impact (Deep Impact) is out of a daughter of Smarty Jones.
That makes 12 active stallions in Australia who feature Elusive Quality on their pedigree, while there are a further two in New Zealand: Vespa, who is by Elusive City, and Ghibellines (Shamardal), a son of Camarilla.
Elusive Quality’s considerable influence as a broodmare sire has seen his daughters produce 162 stakes winners globally, 33 of them in Australasia, including Group 1 winners Guelph (Exceed And Excel), Shooting To Win and Ulanova (Santos).
His ongoing commercial value in that role was underlined at this year’s Inglis Easter Yearling Sale where Listen Here’s filly by I Am Invincible was sold by Cressfield to China Horse Club for $1.3 million, the highest-price ever in Australia for the yearling progeny of one of his daughters.
Last year, Away Game (Snitzel), the winner of five stakes races including the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (R. Listed, 1200m) and who is out of Elusive Quality mare Elusive Wonder, sold for $4 million, the highest price for any mare in Australia in 2022.
Descendants of Elusive Quality at stud in Australia and New Zealand
| Stallions | Sire | Stud |
| Aysar | Deep Field | Geisel Park Stud |
| Bivouac | Exceed and Excel | Darley Stud – NSW |
| Bullbars | Elusive Quality | Orange Court |
| Cosmic Force | Deep Field | Newgate Farm |
| Dracarys | Snitzel | Oakwood Farm |
| Dubious | Not a Single Doubt | Kitchwin Hills |
| Encryption | Lonhro | Eureka Stud |
| Fierce Impact | Deep Impact | Leneva Park Seymour |
| Ghibellines | Shamardal | White Robe Lodge |
| Peltzer | So You Think | Twin Hills Stud |
| Portland Sky | Deep Field | Widden Stud |
| Shooting to Win | Northern Meteor | Oakland Park Stud |
| Vespa | Elusive City | Mapperley Stud |
| Wooded | Wootton Bassett | Swettenham Stud |