The best first season sire crop ever?
Freshman-sired winners of the Golden Slipper, Champagne Stakes, Blue Diamond and lucrative sales races suggest this may be the most successful class of maiden stallions
Just how good is the current crop of first season stallions, a group responsible for a Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m), Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m) and Champagne Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) winner among 12 other stakes winners?
Newgate Farm barnmates Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt), the sire of Slipper winner Stay Inside despite being cruelled by fertility issues, and Capitalist (Written Tycoon), whose first crop cavalry includes Captivant and Profiteer, are fighting it out for first season honours, while the pair also lead the leading two-year-old sires category, ahead of the likes of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice).
But there is a talented brigade behind the pair which has given credence to the suggestion that the young sires are the best in decades, possibly ever.
Flying Artie (Artie Schiller), another member of Newgate’s dream team, had Princess Bojack win on the first Saturday in October in Brisbane before Melbourne-trained Artorius (Blue Diamond) became his shining light in the summer and autumn.
Shalaa (Invincible Spirit) had Shaquero claim the ATC Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m), the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) and the Pago Pago Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) during the season while Star Turn (Star Witness), Frosted (Tapit) and Astern (Medaglia d’Oro) have all had numerous winners and progeny who have enjoyed stakes success.
Thirty-seven first season sires so far have had two-year-old winners, not as many as the 40 achieved by the 2009-10 group in which 11 sires produced 12 stakes winners, but this generation holds court for the number of individual stakes winners.
Charge Forward (Red Ransom) won the title that season, but it was also notable for the first crop of two-year-olds by Fastnet Rock (Danehill) who would be crowned a champion Australian stallion in 2011-12 and 2014-15.
By another measure, Extreme Choice and Capitalist also lead the way against all comers on the Australian two-year-old sires table by earnings this season, while Flying Artie, Shalaa, Star Turn, Frosted and Maurice (Screen Hero) are all inside the top 20.
On the same table, by winners, there are seven first season sires inside the top 20 but four-time champion stallion Snitzel sits on top with 20 individual winners.
Statistics, however, can be deceptive and Scone Bloodstock Services’ John Hutchinson says a closer examination of this season’s young sires paints an even stronger picture of their success.
“This year they have sired something like 15 individual stakes winners whereas the year before had eight individual stakes winners and Night Of Thunder accounts for three of those and Pride Of Dubai had one and he was the leading sire (by earnings),” Hutchinson said.
“From that point of view, it is one very good indication, but it’s not just the stakes winners, it’s the quality of the stakes winners.
“If you look at Extreme Choice, he had the Slipper winner; Flying Artie got the Blue Diamond winner; Shalaa got the Magic Millions winner and Capitalist got the Champagne Stakes winner, and they are amongst the major two-year-old races on the calendar.
“They are getting proper horses, that is the point I’m trying to make.”
Written Tycoon (Iglesia), who is on the verge of a maiden champion general sires’ title, landed the 2010-11 first season honour while the previous season Stratum (Redoute’s Choice), aided by first crop Slipper winner Crystal Lily, held off the now four-time champion Snitzel.
The 2012-13 season had Northern Meteor (Encosta De Lago), sadly lost to the industry after just four years, and Sebring (More Than Ready) emerge while Yarraman Park Stud had back-to-back leading first season sires with I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) (2013-14) and Hinchinbrook (Fastnet Rock) (2014-15).
Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) were clear leaders in the 2017-18 season and their progeny have continued to be well sought after in the sales ring and have made significant impressions on the racetrack.
One factor often overlooked in what can assist in “making” a stallion is the trainers who end up preparing the progeny of young and unexposed sires and it is another reason Hutchinson believes this season’s generation is elite.
“If you look at the leading sires – Snitzel, Not A Single Doubt, I Am Invincible, Fastnet Rock, Written Tycoon, those group of horses – the freshmen sires aren’t just competing amongst themselves, they are competing against those proven, established stallions’ progeny which always go to the leading stables,” he said.
“So, it’s quite remarkable what they have achieved.”
Magic Millions’ David Chester has more than 50 years’ experience in the racing and breeding industry and he rates the current first season sires amongst the best he’s witnessed.
“I think Without Fear going back to the Lindsay Park days, he was the standard bearer. He had 30 or some other remarkable number of two-year-old winners in his first crop,” Chester said.
“He’d be the best (individual first season sire) that I can remember but this present crop has done extremely well.”
Despite the justified plaudits of this year’s crop of stallions, the question as yet remains unanswered: can this stellar generation maintain the momentum in the seasons to come?
Yearling buyers this year were backing Capitalist to do so, with his second crop averaging $185,346, up from $153,134 in 2020, and he achieved his first million dollar lots with two colts realising $1.05 million at the Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale in April.
Hutchinson thinks that the comparative attrition rate, meaning stallions whose commercial appeal and prowess renders them almost obsolete within a few years, will be much smaller than in previous generations.
He points to the promising trajectory of fellow first season sire Star Turn (Star Witness) and Arrowfield Stud shuttler Maurice (Screen Hero) as just two whose progeny can progress at three.
“Many of the leading first season sires performed very well themselves as two-year-olds. Extreme Choice, Flying Artie, Astern and even horses like Star Turn and Sooboog were good horses, too,” he said.
“Star Turn is an interesting one: I was just looking at his percentage of winners to runners, he’s running at something like 42 per cent, whereas the top three are running at around 25 per cent. Star Turn is doing a really good job with fewer runners and he is still getting pretty classy stock as well.
Maurice, who has eight individual winners and six stakes-placed horses to date, is “a horse I think can have a breakout year” amongst a season of Australia-wide stallion depth, Hutchinson says.
“He’s had a lot of horses who have shown ability and they probably weren’t expected to really, but he has had a number of horses who have been stakes-placed, so he is on the cusp of that breakthrough,” he said.
“Overall, the stallions are fairly widespread, too. Victoria has Frosted and even in Western Australia there is Rommel who is shaping up as a fairly handy sire. He is getting some pretty good city class horses over there.
“In the past few years, Queensland’s had Spirit Of Boom and Better Than Ready. It’s good to see that variety, I think. It makes for a strong national bloodstock market.”
Chester also believes this year’s crop of first season stallions has more to offer and that the cohort can develop into important long-term influences on the Australian Stud Book.
“I think the quality of mares they are getting nearly guarantees that they are going to go on,” Chester said.
“The quality of mares in Australia now, particularly at the commercial studs, is quite staggering. People say there are less and less numbers getting bred every year, but what’s happening is, there is more and more quality getting bred and a lot of the lesser lights are falling out of the Stud Book.
“In years gone by, people on cattle and sheep stations had mares registered with the Stud Book. Those days are all gone now and it is mostly only the commercial studs and some hobby breeders who keep their mares registered.
“I think the numbers have fallen, but the quality’s certainly risen.”
He added: “There’s probably more choice here in Australia than any other country in the world when it comes to your leading sires and certainly your two-year-old sires.
“In the old days, there used to be only one or two. Going back to when I first started, you had Star Kingdom and Wilkes and everything else was a distant third. Now, we’ve got any number of good stallions.”