REDOUTE'S CHOICE NOTCHES UP 100TH STAKES WINNER

Redoute’s Choice
(Photo : Aga Khan Studs)

REDOUTE’S CHOICE
Danehill (USA) - Shanthas Choice (AUS)

Elite Australian sire Redoute’s Choice, who is standing the Northern Hemisphere season for the first time this year in France, reached his 100th individual stakes winner on 23 February when She’s Clean won the Triscay Stakes (Listed) at Warwick Farm in Sydney.

Australia’s leading sire in 2006 and 2010, Redoute’s Choice is based at John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in Austalia. The 16-year-old son of Danehill began a new career as a shuttler to Europe this season and recently began serving his first mares at the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval in France, where he stands for a €70,000 fee.

“This is a wonderful milestone to celebrate, but the future for Redoute’s Choice is even more exciting as he enters a new phase of his career, standing his first season in Europe,” Messara said.

Redoute’s Choice joins sire Danehill and father-son pair Sir Tristram and Zabeel as the only stallions to sire 100 or more worldwide stakes winners from Australasian-conceived foals.

The milestone marks a lifetime sire record of 11.4% stakes winners from starters. Redoute’s Choice has 21 Group 1 winners, including Australian champions Miss Finland, Fashions Afield, and Samantha Miss, New Zealand champion King’s Rose, and South African champion Musir, and 10 classic winners. His sire record also includes stakes winners in the United Kingdom, Germany, Dubai, Turkey, Hong Kong, and Japan, all of whom were conceived in Australasia.

Redoute’s Choice began his stud career at Arrowfield in the Segenhoe Valley in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales and was Australia’s leading first-crop sire in 2004 and leading juvenile sire in 2005 and 2006.

Overall, Redoute’s Choice has progeny earnings of more than $89million. His offspring are in high demand at auction as evidenced by a yearling sale average of more than $440,000.

Redoute’s Choice has already established himself as a sire of sires, with Stratum and Snitzel the sires of Group 1 winners and ranking as Champion Sires. Four other sons have sired Group 1 winners, including Not a Single Doubt, whose undefeated 2-year-old daughter Miracles of Life won the $1million Blue Diamond Stakes (Group 1) on 23 February at Caulfield. Additionally, Redoute’s Choice has been effective as a broodmare sire as his daughters have produced 16 stakes winners.

He currently ranks fourth on Australia’s general sire list by progeny earnings, with $5,562,745. And three sons - Snitzel, Stratum and Not a Single Double rank in the top 15.

Redoute’s Choice won eight of 10 career starts, including the four Group 1 races in Australia - the 1999 Blue Diamond, Manikato, Caulfield Guineas and 2000 C.F. Orr Stakes - and amassed a lifetime bankroll of $995,264. He is out of the Canny Lad mare Shantha’s Choice and is a full brother to Group 1 winner Platinum Scissors and a half brother to Group 1 winner Manhattan Rain and Group 3 winner Sliding Cube.

She’s Clean won her sixth race from 14 career starts with the Triscay Stakes victory. She was produced by the stakes-placed End Sweep mare Feather Duster, a half sister to Japanese Champion Kinshasa no Kiseki, and is from the family of French Group 1 winner and important sire Groom Dancer, French Group 1 winner Plumania, and French classic winner Falco.

Extract from BloodHorse

DANEHILL VS DANEHILL'S HEIR

High Chaparral… firing the digestive juices of Australian investors
(Photo : Coolmore)

“Racing is about running and in general,
the best beget the best…”

There’s no doubt about it, the Aussies have been using their home-bred racing champions with greater confidence than we have, for some time now. While it took an imported stallion in the form of Star Kingdom (a grandson of the great English sire, Hyperion) to trigger it off, he left in his wake a legion of out-and-out speed horses, Biscay, Bletchingly and Marscay to inspire the locals into believing that colonial-breds had some kind of shot in the breeding sheds. Whether it was driven by commercial necessity or a genuine belief in their own racing merit, their faith rested principally in those that had shown extraordinary precocity and speed at two, and so Golden Slipper heroes like Vain (by Wilkes by Court Martial) got their chances, too.

However, the lords and ladies of the “Old Country” kept reminding us colonists that the font of real excellence remained in Britain, and when the Americans and the French began to reveal the prowess of their local-breds, the British parliament enacted the Jersey Act in 1913, which effectively closed the General Stud Book to only those horses with genuine British roots. Whether we can blame it on this piece of legislation, or whether it was a general sense that if it came from England, it was always better than the local product, we don’t know, but the fact is that breeders in the colonies laboured for decades with the complex that the local-bred was inferior.

You’ve heard us say this before, but it’s worth reiterating, racing is about running and in general, the best beget the best. The Aussies eventually discovered this in no uncertain terms with the advent of the only genuinely successful imported shuttle sire, Danehill, who left a veritable treasure trove of stallion prospects in Australia. Just as the Japanese discovered through their “emperor”, Sunday Silence, who with his sons occupied as many as seven or eight of the top ten spots in their sires log, Danehill and his sons have done much the same, and in Fastnet Rock, he now has a third champion sire to his name. The redoubtable Redoute’s Choice was the first, Flying Spur the second, and now Fastnet Rock, who like Redoute’s Choice, is posting numbers comparable to the legend himself.

This weekend past, Fastnet Rock recorded his 33^rd career Stakes winner when Destruction did just that to his field in the Dalrello Stakes in Brisbane. Remarkably, he was Fastnet Rock’s 16th individual Black- type scorer this season alone.

What’s interesting about Fastnet Rock’s career to date are the parallels with Danehill. At the same point in his career, Danehill had raked up 32 Stakes winners (including 12 Group One winners) while Fastnet Rock with a couple of months of the season to go, already has 33 Stakes winners with 10 Group One winners. It has to be said though, that for all his spectacular virtues (he is the only sire in history to have claimed titles in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres), the competition in Danehill’s time was probably not quite as stiff as it is now. It was a straight dogfight in those days with the great New Zealand stallion, Zabeel (himself an Australian home-bred), while both were competing in a space that was largely being vacated by the likes of Marscay and Bletchingly.

These days, Fastnet Rock has to compete head on with his own barn-mate, Encosta Da Lago, as well as Redoute’s Choice and Flying Spur, while the “ante” in the shuttle stakes has been upped considerably with the entry into the market of Darley and their flotilla of world-class performers.

While it’s true that these horses and those of Coolmore represent most of the cream of Northern hemisphere stallions, it’s only in Australasia that the best of America, Europe, Britain and Ireland, get to compete on a single playing field, and so there’s an argument to support the theory that the Southern hemisphere could just be the toughest testing ground in the stallion business anywhere.

Of course, we must remember that success in the North doesn’t always convert itself into success in the South; indeed, it seldom does, and it’s probably fair to say that despite the odd successes from the legion of shuttlers that have done duty in the Antipodes, the only real big hit came from Danehill. Horses like Montjeu, Galileo and Giant’s Causeway had little impact Down Under, though there’s a new star in the firmament right now in the form of Sadler’s Wells’ six-time Group One winning son, High Chaparral, who gave that territory four Group One winners in his first season at stud, to add to the two he’d produced up North. The trifecta of his sons Shootout, Descarado and Monaco Consul in the Australian Derby (Gr.1) and the globe-trotting exploits of one of the world’s best middle distance performers, So You Think, have so fired the digestive juices of Australian investors, that fellows like us, who trawl their sales for the occasional prospect, don’t even get in a gear change in the bidding for them.

So much for Australasia. The local scene appears to have finally turned the corner in its self-belief. We’ve had the occasional warning shots from the likes of Elevation, Harry Hotspur and Model Man, telling us to pay more attention to our own champions, but it wasn’t until recently that Jet Master, Captain Al and National Emblem shot to real prominence. We’ve been short of faith for so long, the regular practice among our trainers was to geld as the quick solution to any animal’s temperament, waywardness or haemo-concentration in his blood, and we haven’t quite found our way out of that mentality yet. For all his influence as one of the best stallions we’ve known, Jet Master has just one Group One-winning son at stud, and he’s already gone. It’s time we took a leaf out of the Australian book, and come to the realization that the horse proven in our own conditions, has at least as good a shot as a top horse from abroad. The cattle and the sheep breeders knew that long ago.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval 27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

SIR PATRICK HOGAN : BATTLER TO BRAVO

Sir Tristram
(Photo : Stallions)

SIR TRISTRAM (IRE)
Sir Ivor (USA) - Isolt (USA)

How dominant has Cambridge Stud been at the New Zealand Bloodstock’s Karaka National Yearling Sales, which kicked off yesterday. For 30 straight years, Sir Patrick and Lady Justine Hogan’s operation has led all consignors by gross at Karaka. Or, put another way, since Reagan gave his first State of the Union in 1982.

The history of Cambridge is a fantastic tale of success from humble origins. In the early 1970s, the Hogans operated a small farm that staffed just one worker, in addition to the Hogans themselves. In its first year, the farm had just five foals, and was soon in crisis mode after they lost not one but four mares for various reasons. That left them with a single mare and serious questions about just what the future had in store for them. But in 1975, a saviour came to Cambridge. His name was Sir Tristram (Ire).

Now world-renowned as one of Australasia’s most prolific sires, Sir Tristram was a virtual unknown when he came to New Zealand to stand his first season at Cambridge. A son of Sir Ivor, he had won two of 19 starts racing primarily in Europe for trainer Clive Brittain. However, Brittain thought enough of the colt to send him to the States to compete in the Kentucky Derby in 1974, a fact that may surprise some American race fans. (At 25-1, Sir Tristram ran 11th to Cannonade under Hall of Fame rider Bill Hartack.)

Sir Tristram’s immediate pedigree was as modest as his race record. His dam Isolt, by Round Table, was unraced and didn’t produce a stakes winner, and his second dam, the stakes-placed All My Eye (*My Babu), didn’t produce a stakes winner, either. But Sir Tristram’s third dam was a half-sister to the outstanding international sire Hyperion, and his successful sire siblings Sickle, Pharamond II and Hunter’s Moon, so there was some reason for hope. Still, breeders were hardly clamoring for Sir Tristram’s services, and he began his career at Cambridge for a fee of NZ$1,300.

Improbably, from that modest start, he built up a dynasty in Australia and New Zealand that included a record nine sire championships. He sired over 130 stakes winners, including a world-record 46 individual Group 1 winners, and was the sire of three Melbourne Cup winners.

“Paddy”, as he was called at Cambridge, ultimately saw his fee rise to NZ$200,000, and when he was euthanized in 1997 after breaking his shoulder, he was buried standing up following a 40 minute service. Sir Tristram’s exploits built Cambridge into a powerhouse in New Zealand, and he left a lasting gift to the nursery : his son Zabeel (NZ), a Cambridge homebred.

Foaled in 1986, Zabeel won the G1 Australian Guineas three years later, but really made his mark once returned to stand at Cambridge. Twice he’s been Australia’s champion sire and four times New Zealand’s; he has won the Dewar Award (combined Australian / New Zealand earnings) a record 14 times. His get includes over 120 stakes winners and 41 Group 1 winners, and he’s the sire of three G1 Melbourne Cup winners and four G1 Cox Plate winners, including Might and Power (NZ), Savabeel (Aus) and Octagonal (NZ).

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News…

DAZZLING DANEHILL

Danehill
(Photo : Racehorse HK)

DAZZLING DANEHILL

The dust has finally settled on Australia’s Magic Millions Premier Yearling sales marathon week, and once again it was a triumph for the greatest stallion in Southern Hemisphere history. If you did any advance work on the catalogue, you couldn’t help but notice the plethora of entries descended from Danehill in the first or second generation, to the point of virtual saturation. With the enormous books Australian stallions are serving these days, the catalogue is obviously dominated by his male descendants, and there’s no shortage of those who carry his influence on the distaff side, an amazing reflection of how quickly he has supplanted Star Kingdom as the principal source of quality racehorses Down Under.

Who would’ve thought that within little more than a decade, a stallion of the pervasive presence in their pedigrees such as Star Kingdom, would face the prospect of extinction as a male-line provider, given that for decades he carried that burden and shaped the Australian breed almost singlehandedly.

Students of the Danehill story would’ve been forgiven in the early years of his life as a “shuttler”, for believing that it was the suitability of his mates in Australasia that set him up for immortality, and especially those descending from Star Kingdom. In his initial years, Danehill’s mark as a stallion was undeniably Australian. The truth though, probably lies more in the fact that as a horse with obvious physical flaws and perhaps a little suspect on the performance side, he was considered surplus to requirements in Europe. His breeders, Juddmonte, do not lightly let a prospect go and it certainly wasn’t money that induced the sale. Juddmonte’s principal, Prince Khalid Abdullah, a first cousin to the King of Saudi Arabia, is not a man in need, but is one of the world’s foremost breeders of racehorses, and he was astute enough to retain a breeding interest in the horse he was parting with. In the end, Danehill was just as successful in the Northern Hemisphere, but only once European breeders came to appreciate his value, though in sheer numbers, his recognition there came much later in the day, and was therefore somewhat short-lived, as he died prematurely in 2003.

Anyone who knows Arrowfield’s John Messara as well as we do, would count him among the rare international visionaries of our sport, and when it comes to analysing and spotting a prospect, his record stands alone. This man bred Zabeel, he made Danehill and his three champion sons Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur and Danzero, and his record as a “kingmaker” rivals that of Lord Derby, Federico Tesio and “Bull” Hancock. It didn’t take him long to identify the merits of this European champion sprinter of 1989, and it didn’t take Danehill long to sire the winner of the world’s richest two-year-old contest, Australia’s Golden Slipper. Indeed, it didn’t take him to long to sire his first three Golden Slipper winners; he did so in each of his first three crops, and while he did that in short time, his time at the top of Australia’s sire premiership was enduring.

No-one was surprised then, that the top lot at Aus $960,000 at last week’s Gold Coast sale, was a colt by Danehill’s son, Fastnet Rock, who in the same week, sired the winners of the New Zealand and Australian 1000 Guineas to boot. Neither was anyone surprised when the famous “split” between the original owners of Danehill, Messara’s Arrowfield and John Magnier’s Coolmore, made him the most valuable stallion in Australian history. The matter was settled in a Dutch auction before a former Chief Justice of Australia, and the horse was turned over at a reported $24million. That was a helluva lot of money in those days, but in retrospect, it was peanuts.

Read more about Danehill…

ZABEEL VS DANEHILL

Zabeel vs Danehill
(Photos : NZ Bloodstock / Summerhill Sires Brochure)

STATISTICS TELL A THOUSAND STORIES

We know this is an Aussie story, and holds little currency in South Africa. But this story has “moment”, and is well worth publishing.

Statistics tell a thousand stories, says Adrian Clark. It’s been well publicised that Zabeel clocked up his 40th individual Group One winner a couple of weekends back when Zabrasive (NZ) won the Darley Rosehill Guineas. So how does Zabeel’s record compare with the greatest stallion to have stood in the Southern Hemisphere in the last two decades, Danehill?

How do they measure up?

ACCOLADE	ZABEEL	DANEHILL
Group One winners in Australia and New Zealand	37	41
Australian Horse of the Year title holders	3 Might and Power x2 Octagonal	Nil
Australian Stallion Premierships	2	9
W S Cox Plate Winners	4 Maldivian Savabeel	Dane Ripper
Golden Slipper Winners	Nil	5 Ha Ha Catbird Merlene Flying Spur Danzera
Melbourne Cup Winners	3 Efficient Jezabeel Might and Power	Nil

EDITOR’S NOTE :
What’s clear, is that Danehill holds all the cards at the shorter trips, while Zabeel is the undisputed leader at a distance. But 9 Championships for Danehill, against 2 for Zabeel, is what really separates them. And Danehill was not around quite as long. His was an unfinished story.