Victoria’s Leneva Park Seymour launches Fierce Impact at fee of $16,500
Champion miler son of Deep Impact to be joined by Invincible Spirit’s Royal Meeting
Australia’s newest stud farm, Victoria’s Leneva Park, has announced the service fees for its inaugural line-up, high-class miler Fierce Impact, the only three-time Group 1 winner by Japan’s late breedshaper Deep Impact (Sunday Silence), and fellow internationally-bred topflight winner Royal Meeting (Invincible Spirit).
First season sire Fierce Impact, who Leneva Park bought into earlier this year, will stand for an introductory fee of $16,500 (all fees inc. GST) at the stud’s leased Seymour property, most recently used by Aquis Farm.
Royal Meeting will stand at an unchanged fee of $11,000 in his second year at stud.
The standing of stallions follows on from Leneva Park’s development of a pre-training complex at nearby Longwood in recent years, becoming one of the premier facilities in the state, and general manager Mick Sharkie has been taken aback by the support breeders have been showing the new outfit since its expansion was made public.
“I had a lady ring up wanting to book mares in and she was half revving me up saying, ‘c’mon, c’mon, the market needs to know’, so I think it’s the last piece of the puzzle for the roster,” Sharkie told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday.
“He’s (Fierce Impact) a three-time Group 1 winner and a very popular and tough and classy horse and I think a few people have been hanging on and waiting to see what he’d go up at.”
The Matthew Smith-trained Fierce Impact, who was raced in Australia by a syndicate which included Seymour Bloodstock’s Darren Thomas and large-scale Sydney-based owner Frank Cook, was crowned the country’s joint champion middle distance horse last season.
Bought out of the 2017 Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training Sale for 120,000gns by Smith, he came to Australia and was able to make a big impression for his owners, winning the 2019 Toorak Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m), backing up to win the Cantala Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) three weeks later and, last spring, he took out the Makybe Diva Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m).
He was also runner-up in last year’s C F Orr Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and third in both the Chipping Norton Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) and the Winx Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m).
Sharkie is convinced the Deep Impact sire line is one that can make a mark Down Under.
“I think it is a line that is well worth pursuing in Australia. It’s proven at such an elite level all around the world,” he said.
“As far as the Victorian scene goes, there’s a lot of speed (stallions), obviously, and there’s a couple of longer distance horses like Russian Camelot and then when you look at the milers, it’s really Toronado – who is going to be standing at a decent amount this season, and rightly so, he’s doing a good job – and we thought there was a real place in the market for Fierce Impact at $16,500.
“I think it’s a really competitive fee for a horse who has the record that he does.”
Fierce Impact, who was originally sourced from the JRA Select Foal Sale by UK agent David Redvers, is out of four-time Japanese stakes-winning mare Keiai Gerbera (Smarty Jones), making him a brother to Grade 1 winner Keiai Nautique and Keiai Shelby, a juvenile winner in Japan last year.
“He is a really nice type – I think he was $900,000 (¥66 million) as a foal in the foal sale in Japan, so he’s a well conformed horse,” Sharkie said.
“He’s not a big, heavy horse. He’s 16 hands and around 490 kilograms when he was in work, so he was very athletic.
“If he leaves horses like himself, they’re going to turn enough heads as foals and come yearling time, so I think he’s the right sort of horse for Victoria.
“All his Group 1 performances were here, they know him here and with the number of phone calls I’ve had, they certainly know he’s coming.”
A two-year-old winner in the UK at his first start when ridden by Jamie Spencer, Fierce Impact was retired as the winner of six races from 29 starts and the winner of more than $3.3 million in prize-money.
Meanwhile, Royal Meeting, a Criterium International (Gr 1, 1400m) winner at Chantilly at two, will enter his second season with the aim of building some momentum after a syndicate involving agent Mark Pilkington and Seymour Bloodstock’s Thomas, Aquis Farm and a number of other Victorian breeders bought Royal Meeting last year.
“Aquis couldn’t show him to the market last year due to Covid, but they still got 88 mares to him. Brian Byrnes, our operations manager, did a great job last year getting those numbers to him without any (on-farm) views,” Sharkie said.
“When people come out to the farm to see this horse, I think he’ll speak for himself. He’s really let down into a beautiful stallion, very much in the mould of Invincible Spirit.
“He’s got a great temperament and, again, he’s one where the word is kind of getting out about him and the way he’s developed in the past 12 months.
“We’ve also had some calls about him, which is really positive.”
Out of South Africa’s champion two-year-old Grade 1-winning filly Rock Opera (Lecture), Royal Meeting is also a half-brother to six-time stakes winner Heavy Metal (Exceed And Excel).
Leneva Park has been increasing the size and depth of its broodmare band in recent months and the plan is to continue that investment at the upcoming broodmare sales.
“We’ve been hunting around for mares off the track, mares online that we like and starting to collect a little harem for these stallions,” he said.
“We’ll definitely be there at Chairman’s and the Australian Broodmare Sale as well, both those Inglis sales, and pushing on into Magic Millions later in the year.
“We want to make sure we’re supporting these stallions with the right sort of mares as well.”
Lean Mean Machine (Zoustar), one of Aquis’ foundation stallions in Victoria, was to also stand at Leneva Park Seymour this year, but it was announced recently that he would instead relocate to Queensland as part of Aquis’ consolidation of its breeding business.
Sharkie is comfortable with the balance of the Leneva Park business despite the absence of Lean Mean Machine, a stallion the farm will still support in Queensland.
“With the two stallions that we’ve got, it’s a nice number to start the push into that side of the market,” he said.
“We will always have an appetite to add more, but we want to make sure we’re adding the right sort of stallions, rather than just anything we can get.
“We will probably look at speed influence for next season (2022). That would be the next thing to add and hopefully by then people are seeing Royal Meeting’s foals and loving them and Fierce Impact’s had a really good first-year book and there’s a lot of positivity about what we’re doing.”
Needs Further (Encosta De Lago), who also stood at the Seymour property last year, has returned to Armidale Stud in Tasmania where he will stand for a fee of $8,800 in 2021.
Leneva Park Seymour service fees 2021 (2020)
Fierce Impact (Deep Impact) $16,500 (new)
Royal Meeting (Invincible Spirit) $11,000 (unchanged)
*all fees inclusive of GST