‘We’ve had the greatest confidence in him’
Arrowfield Stud look to the future with The Autumn Sun following Group 1 breakthrough
Arrowfield Stud is preparing for a boom in mares being sent to The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) after Autumn Angel provided him a stunning breakthrough top-flight success in Saturday’s Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) at Randwick.
The $66,000 (inc GST) sire, whose fee appears set to remain where it has been for the four years following his initial $77,000 (inc GST) season, had come tantalisingly close to landing his first top-tier winner on several occasions.
New Zealand filly Tulsi ran second in last season’s Sistema Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m), before running third in November’s New Zealand 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
And Tutta La Vita had been Group 1 placed three times this season coming into Saturday’s Oaks, with thirds in Randwick’s Flight (Gr 1, 1600m) and Surround Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) stakes, before a 0.63 length second to star Kiwi mare Orchestral (Savabeel) two weeks ago in the Vinery Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
But while $12 shot Tutta La Vita couldn’t capitalise – finishing fifth – when Orchestral’s five-start win streak came to an end with her third at $1.65 on Saturday, it was Autumn Angel who landed the Classic for The Autumn Sun, shredding any doubts about her 2400 metres capability by surging home late to score by 0.84 length, after firming from $7 to $6 late in betting.
In so doing, the daughter of Group 1-placed, quadruple stakes-winning mare Angel Of Mercy (Hussonet), bought for $230,000 at Inglis Easter by Dalziel Bloodstock and co-trainer Peter Moody, pushed her sire skywards on more than one table.
The eight-year-old rose to fourth by earnings on Australia’s second season sires’ chart, where he sits second by winners, with 30 from 79 runners, behind the 35 from 89 of Widden’s Trapeze Artist (Snitzel).
Those two share second by stakes-winners, with three each behind the four of Darley shuttler Harry Angel (Dark Angel), while that trio shares second by stakes wins (five) behind the six of Coolmore’s Justify (Scat Daddy).
The Autumn Sun also reached the top ten among Australia’s three-year-old sires, where he sits equal-fifth by stakes winners, and equal-third by stakes wins.
This comes after the five-time Group 1-winning stallion – Australia’s Champion 3YO Colt of 2018-19 – finished a fair sixth on the first-season sires’ ladder last year.
He was only ninth by winners, with four from 26, but his two juvenile stakes-victors in Autumn Ballet and Coco Sun – which ranked only one off the pace shared by Justify and Harry Angel – had his studmasters confident of the second-season blossoming now coming to fruition through his three-year-olds.
And after a not unusual “wait and see” drop in his covers for his fifth season last spring – from 159 in 2022 to 101 – Arrowfield is now anticipating a return to past highs in the coming spring.
“That year is always one of those years when sires are waiting on the big results,” Arrowfield’s bloodstock manager Jon Freyer told ANZ. “And there’s probably a lot of people who might’ve used him in the first couple of years that wish they had have last year.
“He’ll bounce back numbers wise; 140 or 150 is about what we’ll cover with our horses, so he might be around that sort of number. We’ll be sending him a lot of our good mares again, as we always do.”
In the longer term picture, Autumn Angel’s top-tier victory has brought affirmation that The Autumn Sun is tracking largely as Arrowfield had hoped as he sets out to continue to trail blazed by his sire and grandsire – two of the stud’s finest in Redoute’s Choice (Danehill) and Danehill (Danzig).
“We’ve had the greatest confidence in him,” Freyer said. “From his first crop he’s had four group winners, and four that have placed in Group races including two fillies who are multiple Group 1-placed.
“And he’s got seven more that have been knocking on the door in stakes races – they’ve run fourths et cetera – who are looking quite nice.
“Compare that to the same crop of any other stallion going around and no one’s going any better.
“You had the best race for three-year-old fillies on Saturday, and he had two runners, who were both right in the market. Autumn Angel won it, and Tutta La Vita ran well, and she’s got a big race in her.
“So I don’t think The Autumn Sun could have done a whole lot more. Compare his stats to any other stallions of that style of horse – So You Think, Pierro, Savabeel – he’s hitting it out of the park by comparison.”
An hour before Autumn Angel’s triumph, the Team McEvoy trained Coco Sun won her fourth race from nine starts, in a Benchmark 70 over 1600 metres at Bendigo’s marquee stand-alone meeting.
Fifth in the VRC Oaks (Gr 1, 2500m), and an Adelaide Listed winner over 1400 metres at two, Coco Sun is now set to return to Morphettville for the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) on April 27.
The Autumn Sun is set to have as many as four runners in that $1 million event. Greg Hickman’s Private Legacy, sixth in the Adrian Knox Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) in which Autumn Angel ran second, is reportedly Adelaide-bound, while Tulloch Lodge’s Harvest Moon and Henry Dwyer’s The Autumn Belle are in the frame after running fourth and seventh in Saturday’s key lead-up, the Auraria Stakes (Gr 3, 1800m) at Morphettville.
Freyer also predicted Autumn Angel, like her sire, was in for a stellar future.
“She’s a top class filly,” he said of the Moody and Coleman runner, who now has three stakes victories after taking October’s Ethereal Stakes (Gr 3, 2000m) at Caulfield and Flemington’s Kewney Stakes (Gr 2, 1600m) last month.
“I think she could have won the VRC Oaks in the spring but Peter elected to give her a bit of extra time. It’s really paid dividends. She’s landed the big prize which is what everyone wants, and did it in great style, and it was really a top-class Oaks. She didn’t find a soft one – there were four or five top class fillies in the Oaks.
“So, full credit to the stallion. It’s looked like a few of his horses would deliver in these big races, and it’s now coming to fruition.”
The Autumn Sun – the only stakes winner so far of unraced Aga Khan-bred mare Azmiyna (Galileo), who was exported to Japan in 2019 – was a top-tier winner at two in Brisbane’s JJ Atkins Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m). He added four Group 1s in a stellar three-year-old season, from the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), to the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m) and up to the 2000 metres of the Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m).
And the Aga Khan family’s influence is contributing to his progeny’s stamina, Freyer said.
“He was a Group 1 winner at two and won the Golden Rose and the two Guineas, but he stretched out to win a Rosehill Guineas, and people seem to remember that more than anything else,” Freyer said.
“But also, the Galileo influence in his family, and that Aga Khan family, is playing a bit more stouter than we may have anticipated. The Aga Khans have always had plenty of depth of stamina to them.
“The Autumn Sun has got a lot of horses with a lot of class, and they can obviously get over a bit of a ground. If he can finish up a stallion like a Zabeel or something like that, we’d be delighted.”
Through three seasons at the sales, The Autumn Sun’s average yearling price has dropped from $290,015 through 80 lots sold in 2022, to $232,478 from 65 in 2023, to $181,408 via 48 lots this year.
His two million-dollar-plus lots were both fillies who sold at Easter last year.
Autumn Glow – the $1.8 million sale-topping half-sister to Group 1 winner In The Congo (Snitzel), is awaiting her first start with Chris Waller under her Arrowfield-Hermitage ownership, and won her first barrier trial last month, at Rosehill.
And Ghaara, bought by Emirates Park for $1.2 million, has trialled once for Tulloch Lodge, last November, before spelling after bleeding. Ghaara is a sister to Autumn Ballet, who showed her sire’s versatility in becoming his first stakes-winner in last season’s Black Opal Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at Rosehill.
Freyer said the Arrowfield team would discuss this year’s service fees in the coming days, but hinted that despite Saturday’s Group 1 title, it was likely The Autumn Sun’s would remain unchanged.
“I think we’ve always been competitive with our service fees and we will be again this year,” he said.
“We’ll have a talk about it amongst the team in the next week or so. The feedback I’m getting from all the breeders is they’ve felt it was a tougher year at the sales this year than it’s been in the past, and I think we’ll be mindful of that when we’re setting fees.”
