Rich Hill’s roster on the rise
Proisir, Satono Aladdin and Ace High all earn fee increases
Rich Hill’s rising tide of stallion power to become one of New Zealand’s most influential sources of sire strength is evident again in 2024 with the Matamata-based operation increasing the service fees of three of the five horses on its roster.
Stud principal John Thompson announced on Wednesday that last season’s New Zealand champion sire Proisir (Choisir) will stand for NZ$80,000 (all fees plus GST), up from a career-high NZ$70,000 in 2023, while Satono Aladdin (Deep Impact) (NZ$65,000) and Ace High (High Chaparral) (NZ$15,000) have also earned fee hikes.
The consistent Shocking (Street Cry), the sire of this season’s Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) winner El Vencedor, remains at an unchanged fee of NZ$12,500 while last-start Otaki-Maori WFA Classic (Gr 1, 1600m) winner La Crique’s sire Vadamos (Monsun) will stand for a reduced NZ$9,000 to round out the enviable Rich Hill Stud roster.
Rich Hill flagbearer Proisir has followed on from his stunning and premiership-winning 2022-23 season, which yielded five individual Group 1 winners, with Legarto adding the Herbie Dyke Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) to her record, while The Quokka (1200m) contender Waitak won the Railway (Gr 1, 1200m) earlier this year.
The now retired Prowess, another Group 1 winner in the previous season for Proisir, won the Crystal Mile (Gr 2, 1600m) at Moonee Valley on Cox Plate day last October, while highly talented three-year-old Coeur Volante won two Group races in Melbourne. Yonce has also won at Group 3 level for trainer Ciaron Maher this season.
Thompson said his rags-to-riches sire, a Group 3 winner who was twice runner-up to Dundeel (High Chaparral) at Group 1 level, had gone to a new level commercially over the past 12 months.
“There’s been a few fairytales with the stallion when he started out at $7,000 and even his yearlings sold this year that were conceived off a $12,500 fee and there will be next year, too, where they are off a $17,500 fee,” Thompson told ANZ Bloodstock News.
“I guess the key thing is, he’s upgraded so many mares. You really feel that with his foals on the ground now, they are probably the first of the better-bred crops coming through and obviously [that’s gone up a level again with] what he served last year.
“You have to be very excited about what’s in store for him going forward.”
Proisir’s feats are also increasingly being recognised in the sales ring with his stock averaging AUD$243,173 in 2024 and numerous yearlings being bought by Australia-based owners and trainers including the New Zealand Bloodstock Karaka Yearling Sale-topping sister to Prowess who made NZ$1.6 million.
Meanwhile, Satono Aladdin, who has had six individual southern hemisphere-bred stakes winners this season, has also earned a fee increase to NZ$65,000, up NZ$20,000 on the previous year.
He missed a year shuttling to Rich Hill Stud in 2020, meaning he has no current two-year-olds on the ground, but his return crop of yearlings sold up to $900,000 with the sister to the Australian Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) placed Japanese Emperor bought by trainer Chris Waller and agent Guy Mulcaster.
His 14 Karaka Book 1-sold yearlings averaged NZ$235,000 with a crop of 102 weanlings on the ground, the first time Satono Aladdin has had more than 100 southern hemisphere-bred foals in his first five seasons at Rich Hill. He covered 168 mares in 2023.
Thompson described Satono Aladdin’s statistics as “quite incredible” and that his progeny’s performances necessitated a further increase in service fee for the Shadai Stallion Station-owned stallion.
“I think he’s running at 10.6 per cent and that’s Group winners to runners, not just stakes winners, which is really world class,” he said.
“He’s an international horse and, at the end of the day, to keep that sort of horse in the country that’s where he needs to be.
“He got some beautifully bred mares last year and quite a few mares came from Australia to go to him, so I think he’s looking like the logical successor to his sire Deep Impact in this part of the world at the moment.”
The first crop three-year-olds of Rich Hill’s ATC Spring Champion (Gr 1, 2000m) and Victoria Derby (Gr 1, 2500m) winning sire Ace High have also emerged this season, with top-class New Zealand Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) winning filly Molly Bloom leading the way along with another promising filly, the last-start Otago Breeders’ Stakes (Listed, 1400m) winner Drakaina.
Formerly trained by the Riverton-based Ebony Turner, three-year-old Drakaina was recently purchased by leviathan Western Australian owner Bob Peters in a deal brokered by Pinhook Bloodstock’s Dave Mee.
Thompson also pointed out that a number of promising Ace Highs had also been bought by Australians out of New Zealand barrier trials.
“There’s a horse called High Five who was one of those [who ran at Caulfield on Wednesday] and then at Pakenham [tonight] there’s a horse called Angland who bolted in at his first start by seven lengths,” Thompson said.
“Then there’s Joe Pride’s horse Bullets High who is running in the Group 3 Frank Packer Plate on Saturday, so you just get a feeling the momentum is really starting to build for the horse.
“Ace High has always been popular with the breeders, he remains accessible at that fee.”
Shocking continues to be underrated, according to Thompson, but he has enjoyed another stellar season, siring El Vencedor as well as recording his first Group 1 win as a broodmare sire courtesy of Waitak.
The studmaster said: “He’s sat there and watched his other barnmates profiles going through the roof, but he consistently performs as he has in the past couple of months with a very smart Group 1 winner and Mark Twain qualifying for the Melbourne Cup [via the Roy Higgins at Flemington].”
Of La Crique’s sire Vadamos, Thompson said: “There are still a number of breeders in New Zealand who like to spend around $10,000 on a service fee and he really fits in that category now.
“He can get a sales horse, he can get a lovely looking horse and he’s capable of siring a Group 1 horse, so he deserves his spot on the roster.”
Rich Hill stallion roster (all plus GST)
2024 2023
Proisir (Choisir) $80,000 $70,000
Satono Aladdin (Deep Impact) $65,000 $45,000
Ace High (High Chaparral) $15,000 $10,000
Shocking (Street Cry) $12,500 unchanged
Vadamos (Monsun) $9,000 $12,500