‘This may never happen for us again’
Newgate hoping freshman stallions can strike with five runners representing roster in Slipper
It started back in the first week of October. Ingratiating took the curtain-raising Maribyrnong Plate Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m) for Darley’s three-time elite-level winner Frosted (Tapit), while an hour and thirty minutes later, north of the border in Sydney, Shaquero led from start to finish to land the coveted Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) at Randwick for Shalaa (Invincible Spirit).
There followed victories in January and February in the two lucrative sales races as Shaquero backed up to win the Magic Millions 2YO Classic (RL,1200m), while Capitalist’s (Written Tycoon) Profiteer was mesmerising in his five-and-a-quarter-length demolition of the field in the Inglis Millennium (RL, 1200m).
The first juvenile Group 1 of the season was then run at Caulfield on February 20. Enter Artorius, who showed shades of his sire Flying Artie (Artie Schiller) to clamour home in the Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m), going one better than his dad, claiming victory for trainers Anthony and Sam Freedman.
The triumphs of runners by first season sires has been a notable feature of racecards across the major two-year-old races and beyond this season and with first season sires represented by seven of the 16 runners of the Golden Slipper today, there is every chance of those victories being added to in Rosehill’s showpiece event.
First crop stallions resident at Newgate Farm are responsible for five of those seven runners by first season sires, with Capitalist holding a remarkable three contenders for the race, while Flying Artie has Artorius and Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) the Pierro Plate (1100m) winner, Stay Inside. The latter could conceivably have fielded another runner in the shape of the Newgate-owned Tiger Of Malay, however connections opted to focus on the Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) in a fortnight.
“I think it’s very interesting. If you speak to the ratings experts they said it was an exceptional crop of three-year-old colts that year,” said Bruce Slade, director of bloodstock at Newgate Farm, to ANZ Bloodstock News.
“They took out the Blue Diamond, the Slipper and the Coolmore Stud Stakes, which have been our time-honoured stallion-making races.
“We were extremely fortunate that year to secure Extreme Choice, Capitalist and Flying Artie who won those three races between them.
“Beyond those three there’s obviously other stallions from that crop doing a terrific job as well, so it’s been incredible.”
Capitalist’s three entrants in the Golden Slipper this year is the most of any stallion, with Slade quick to point out that the success of these top-class stallions lie with their ability to produce quality two-year-olds, with the leading sires Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice), I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and Written Tycoon (Iglesia) having topped the leading two-year-old sires table the last five years, with those three stallions out on their own in this year’s general sires classification.
“You couldn’t have asked for a better start. We hoped that it would happen. He (Capitalist) looked extremely sharp and precocious and he was afforded some great mares in his first book from some of Australia’s best breeders. So we were certainly set up to succeed and we’re just very grateful that he’s followed through and done his part and done it very well.
“The dominant stallions on the Australian landscape right now are our two-year-old stallions,” said Slade.
“There’s I Am Invincible, Snitzel, Exceed And Excel, Written Tycoon – they’re all terrific stallions who are top sires of two-year-olds.
“It’s particularly exciting to see ours competing with them in the two-year-old ranks. Capitalist is not only the leading first-crop sire but the leading two-year-old sire in Australia.”
The prospect of launching three stallions would be a daunting prospect for any stud farm, yet through investment in their broodmare band, with Newgate’s spending, along with partners, topping $30 million at breeding sales since 2012, it has enabled the farm to support these stallions, and it’s a policy that Slade believes has been crucial to the success of their three first-crop sires.
Profiteer, the favourite for tomorrow’s showpiece, is the first foal out of the stakes-placed Athena Lass (Snitzel), who’s family traces back to Festival Stakes (Gr 3, 1500m) winner Sweet Redemption (Snitzel) and Magic Millions Wyong 2YO Classic (RL, 1200m) winner Unite and Conquer (Hinchinbrook), who stands at Sandblom’s Kingstar Farm, was a $300,000 purchase by Newgate at the 2017 Magic Millions Broodmare Sale.
“From our analysis of it, the one thing that the good stallion farms in Australia have done, they are the farms that have supported their stallions very heavily and do a big job to ‘make’ them, so to speak.
“Between SF Bloodstock, Matthew Sandblom and Henry and Louise Field, the three joint owners of Newgate, they’ve been really active in buying the fastest, stakes-winning mares in Australia the last five years.
“They have made a commitment to support our first-crop sires with 20 to 25 mares in each of their first two seasons, and then use those mares on our first-crop sires each time they come in.
“And then raising them on a farm like Newgate, with big paddocks and terrific horsepeople managing the way they are raised and educated, we feel that gives them a good advantage to then kick off and showcase their sires in the best light.”
Capitalist covered a book of 237 mares last year, second only to Coolmore’s So You Think (High Chaparral), with the leading breeders rewarded for their judgement in the young stallion, while Flying Artie covered 187 mares in his first season at stud.
“You’ll notice the horses all in the race this year are all from great breeders. Newgate with Profiteer, Stay Inside. Artorious raised at Vinery and bred by Greg Perry. Segenhoe with Kalashnokov and Ashleigh Thoroughbreds with Captivant, they’re all terrific breeders and raisers of good, young stock. It’s so important to give these horses a chance,” added Slade.
“Number one it’s securing the horses that people want to use and then it comes down to taking care of the people you know.
“When things go right it’s all good. But in those times when things go wrong, and you have mares slip, or whatever else, we really try and look after people really well and give people the confidence to use the Newgate product, knowing they’re going to be treated fairly.”
What has been achieved so far by the fledgling stallions is not lost on the operation, while Slade asserts that to have five of the 16 runners representing their first season stallions is a result that embodies the ethos and commercial targets for Newgate Farm, with the insatiable demand for early speed in the bloodstock market making the Slipper the premier race for developing stallions.
“It is the focus of everything we do at Newgate. If there’s one race that encapsulates what we’re trying to do here it’s the Golden Slipper,” he added.
“It’s the race that takes our core focus and the race we’d most like to win every year. We just really hope we can pull off the big result.”
The farm were quick to make plays for their sires’ promising young talents, securing a deal for majority ownership in Profiteer prior to his Inglis Millennium romp as well as Stay Inside and Artorius, while Captivant was purchased as a yearling for by the Newgate Farm/China Horse Club and Starlight Racing syndicate for $550,000 at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale last year.
A win today for one their stallion prospects, Slade acknowledges, would be the perfect launching pad for when they take their place on the Newgate roster alongside their sires.
“We have a strong hand in those that will be representing us in the big dance on Saturday.
“It may never happen for us like this. To think that we’ve got three of the favourites for the race, all by our first-crop sires and all of which we own a piece of, and then there’s Captivant on top of that, who of course was purchased to race and try and emulate their dad.
“We’re going to be standing first-crop stallions every year for many years to come and if we can pull off what we’ve done this year again, well, I think it’s very hard to do.”
Is this the best first season crop of stallions?
Such notable successes for first season stallions this term would lend itself to the question of where this season’s crop ranks among the annals of our freshman sires in years gone by.
In terms of individual brilliance, the wins for Artorious (Flying Artie) in the Blue Diamond (Gr 1, 1200m) and Profiteer (Capitalist) and Shaquero (Shalaa) in both the lucrative sales races, with the latter posting a Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) success for good measure, would suggest this would be one of the most potent crops of first season stallions in the history of racing in Australia.
There is strength in depth as well.
Twenty-six first season sires have recorded winners so far this term, with a total of seven stakes winners and ten stakes wins, and yet we’re only in March.
These are tallies that already equal or better the figures returned for the entire season in four of the past five years.
The class of 2018, led by the extraordinary Sunlight for Zoustar (Northern Meteor) and fuelled by the Boom revolution as Eureka Stud’s Spirit Of Boom (Sequalo) sired five first-crop stakes winners, recorded 27 first season sires with winners, with seven producing stakes winners for a total of ten individual stakes winners.
While in 2009 a remarkable 40 first season stallions posted winners, resulting in 11 sires with stakes winners for 12 individual stakes winners and 13 stakes wins, as Charge Forward’s (Red Ransom) Sweet Embrace Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) winner and Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) runner-up Headway led a strong contingent of first season sires that included the launch of the first Fastnet Rock (Danehill) two-year-olds.
Perhaps the strongest measure as to the strength and depth of the runners within a first season sire crop lies in their presence within some of the leading races on the two-year-old calendar.
Today’s seven runners in the Golden Slipper would certainly be a primary indicator that the progeny of this year’s first season sires are punching well above their weight. Capitalist (Written Tycoon) is not only the leading first season sire, but is leading the two-year-old sire table and has the most representatives of any sire in the Slipper with three.
Furthermore, last weekend’s Pago Pago Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), a traditionally strong feature as contenders make a last-gasp attempt to win their way into the Slipper, is a race where the first five home were sired by five different first season sires, as Shalaa’s Shaquero defeated Tiger Of Malay for Extreme Choice (Not A Single Doubt) with Mazu for Maurice (Screen Hero) in third. Vadamos (Monsun), through his first runner in Australia, fielded fourth-placed through With Your Blessing, while Ingratiating for Frosted (Tapit) came home fifth.
While you have to go back to 1993 to find the last winner of the Blue Diamond to be sired by a first season sire, when Lady Jakeo dominated the Melbourne two-year-old scene for her sire Last Tycoon (Try My Best) – winning the Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m), Ottawa Stakes (Listed, 1000m) and Gwyn Nursery Stakes (Listed, 1100m) on her way to Group 1 success at Caulfield – first season sires are no strangers to producing winners of the world’s richest two-year-old race at Rosehill.
Eight Golden Slipper winners have been sired from first crops, the most recent of which when Kiamichi caused a shock in landing the race for Telemon Stud’s Sidestep (Exceed And Excel) in 2019, while in 2010 first season sires landed the quinella in juvenile racing’s richest race, as Stratum’s (Redoute’s Choice) Crystal Lily defeated Decision Time representing Foreplay, a son of Danehill (Danzig).
The early 1990s resulted in first season sire winners of the Slipper from Victory Prince (Imperial Prince) with Tierce in 1991 and a year later as Marauding (Sir Tristram), a Slipper winner himself in 1987, sired Burst to Slipper glory, with both stallions emanating from the Sir Ivor sire line.
However, John Messara’s decision to shuttle the incomparable Danehill (Danzig) in 1990 would change the landscape of Australian breeding for a generation.
The sire launched his dynasty in Australia with the winner of the Slipper from his first crop, as Danzero defeated St Covet (Covetous) in 1994. Danehill would go on to sire the Golden Slipper winner from his first three crops.
Prior to Danehill, arguably the most influential stallion on Australian speed was Star Kingdom (Star Dust), who sired the winners of the first five Slippers from 1957 to 1961. The first of which was Todman who, after retiring to Widden Stud in 1960, produced Eskimo Prince to win the 1964 Slipper from his first crop.
A Golden Slipper – Blue Diamond double for first season sires, however, has only been achieved once in the history of both races, and that crop could represent the closest challenger to rivalling what this year’s graduates have achieved.
In 1985 the first crop of Crown Jester (Baguette) produced Golden Slipper winner Rory’s Jester, while a mere 28 days earlier, Oenjay Star (Royal Yacht), the flying South Australian who ran second to Manikato (Manihi) in the Freeway Stakes of 1979 (Gr 2, 1200m), sired the flashy grey Let’s Get Physical to win the Blue Diamond, in what would be a quinella for first season sires with Acumen running second for Wolverton (Wolver Hollow), a Group 3 winner in France who would ply his trade at Trelawney Stud in New Zealand.
This year’s seven runners in a Golden Slipper is a figure unrivalled, but the 1985 race comes close to matching that tally.
In addition to the siring the Slipper and Blue Diamond winners, first season sires also landed the quinella in the Todman Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m), and won the key Slipper lead ups with the Pago Pago Stakes (Rory’s Jester) and Skyline Stakes (Listed, 1200m) and yielded six runners in the Golden Slipper across four different stallions.
Crown Jester, in a standout first crop, produced Asarka to win the Todman and Canonbury Stakes (Listed, 1000m), which that season was run in its original place in the early stages of the new season, while Timothy claimed the Skyline for Meriville (Scarletville) and Super Swift, who was one of two Slipper runners for her stallion Biscawong (Biscay), won the Widden Stakes (Listed, 1000m) while running third in the Silver Slipper, a race Asarka ran second.
Wonga Prince, Biscawong’s other starter in the Slipper, would go on to win the Sires’ Produce (Gr 1, 1400m) that season as first season sires dominated the two-year-old scene, landing the first three Group 1 races on the calendar.
This year’s all-conquering crop of star-studded first season stallions may have some catching up still to do in order to be named Australia’s best, but a win in today’s feature would go some way to claiming that accolade.