‘He’s 20 years of age and he’s just as popular today as he was at any time in his career.’

Last weekend was another to note for Snitzel, as he achieved a stakes double at Pukekohe Park courtesy of Ethereal Star and Letzbeglam, who were victorious in the Listed Challenge S. and G3 Counties Bowl respectively.

It was the second time this season that Snitzel had sired a same-day, same-track stakes double, having done so on October 1 when the excellent victory of Empire Of Japan in the G3 Breeders’ Plate (aptly sponsored by Arrowfield) was followed up by Williamsburg taking out the Listed Dulcify S. at Randwick.

“He’s had a very good start this year,” Messara told TDN AusNZ. “He’s had an average of one stakes win every 11 days so far. It’s only early days but, overall, in the last six years, he’s had one stakes win every 13 days, which is really difficult to do.

“And his book sizes haven’t been massive. They’ve been big, but not like the 200-plus types. So, he hasn’t had that huge proliferation in numbers that often give the illusion of grand results.

“This guy gets the winners, and on a percentage basis he’s running at the highest stakes percentage in the country - there isn’t any other horse at 10 per cent at the moment.”

Looking for clues

Amongst the four victors forming Snitzel’s two double-stakes weekends this season there are two juveniles (a colt and a filly), a 3-year-old colt and a 5-year-old mare. Can’t spot the pattern? That’s because there isn’t one. According to Messara, therein lies the brilliance of Snitzel.

“He’s the most versatile stallion,” Messara said. “If there’s a Snitzel having its first start, you always brace yourself for a pretty good performance. They try hard, they’ve got a lot of natural pace and they’re tough - and they quite often train on.

“It doesn’t surprise me to see an early starter, and it doesn’t surprise me to see a 5-year-old mare win a stakes race. He’s a wonderful stallion from that point of view, he can do it all.”

Naturally, that leads to the question of whether there’s a secret to his success, and that undeniable versatility. Taking a close look, one thing you might notice is how well Snitzel crosses with foreign bloodlines.

At 11 per cent, Snitzel’s progeny out of daughters of Red Ransom (USA) are above his typical stakes winners to runners rate, and sky-high are the crosses with mares by High Chaparral (Ire) at 25 per cent, Street Cry (Ire) at 27 per cent and Elusive Quality (USA) at 29 per cent.

“It works pretty well - I think that’s a Danehill trait,” surmised Messara. “Look at The Autumn Sun - he’s out of a Galileo mare and he’s done really well. You get the depth of family from the international side and you get the sheer, natural Australian speed from him (Danehill).

“I looked at that when I imported Danehill to Australia. That was the time that I said to myself: ‘How’s this going to work with pedigrees that are down there?’

“He worked brilliantly with pedigrees that are down there, but he also worked quite brilliantly with pedigrees that we’d imported into Australia. There had already started to be a good importation of foreign mares into Australia at that time, and he came in around the same time.

“He did brilliantly well and his grandson, Snitzel, is doing the same.”

The next influence?

Snitzel certainly is. He is the sire of five Group 1-winning 2-year-olds - Sizzling, Estijaab, Sword Of State, Summer Passage and Invader - plus a further 13 Group 1 winners and 129 stakes winners overall.

“He’s just the perennial, isn’t he? He’s 20 years of age and he’s just as popular today as he was at any time in his career,” noted Messara.

Although as healthy as ever, Snitzel’s book is these days restricted, albeit marginally, and his many years of producing elite-level winners across Australia means he now has a number of sons standing at stud in their own right.

“Some of them are looking interesting,” said Messara. “There will be sufficient sons at stud over the next two or three years to get a pretty judgement on whether he’s going to be a really good sire of sires, I think he’s probably going to be.”

Needless to say, that’s a judgement worth listening to. As is Messara’s decision in selecting one of his sons, Showtime, to stand alongside him at Arrowfield Stud.

Gallery: Some of Snitzel's Group 1-winning 2-year-olds, images courtesy of Sportpix

“He’s a low-key horse as a Group 2 winner with a very good pedigree,” Messara said of Showtime. “We always felt that he was a Group 1 winner in waiting. His trainer, John Hawkes, was very keen on him time after time, and for one reason or another he got beaten in a couple of those Group 1s.

“But he was right up there with the best of them, so we decided to give him his chance. He’s not the usual sort of horse that we stand here, but we thought: 'We bred him, he’s out of a decent family and he’s a tough, tough horse who deserves a chance.'

“People have rung in to say that they’ve got a nice one, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

A first-season sire, Showtime excelled in his own racing career over distances of 1400 metres to a mile, and as such Messara isn’t expecting his progeny to be especially precocious.

With Arrowfield having bred 33 of Snitzel’s own stakes winners, surely they’re at an advantage in matching the right mares to Showtime? That’s not quite how it works with this sireline according to Messara…

“They come in absolutely every shape and size, and they work with all sorts of pedigrees - he’s an enigma,” Messara chuckled.

“I remember my stud manager at the time when Snitzel had his first foals ringing me up to say: ‘Boss, we’ve got a few of these Snitzels, they’re in every shape and every colour - I’m worried.’ I said: ‘Don’t worry until they run. When they can’t run, then you start to worry.’

“There aren’t many rules to Snitzel, the only rule is that they’re brave, they’re quick and they’re genuine. That’s about it.”

Full circle and out of the box

It’s been nearly three decades since the progeny of Danehill (USA) first made their mark on Australian racing, and his influence as a breed-shaper needs no introduction. Such is his prevalence in Australian breeding now that a farm standing a stallion lacking his bloodline will often use that as a chief selling point.

But, as Messara points out, importing mares is far from novel concept, and the eagle-eyed may have noticed that first-season sire The Autumn Sun was the beneficiary of Messara’s global view of racing and breeding on Monday morning when one of his sons out of a Japanese mare became his first trial winner.

Unsurprisingly for the visionary Messara, this is nothing new either…

“We’ve had a joint venture with Northern Farm for over 20 years,” he explained. “Incidentally, they own a quarter of Snitzel as well, and they’re very good partners.

“We have a venture together on broodmares that we bring in from Japan, who are surplus to their requirements. We try to bring them in as young as we can, and we make them here with our own sires.

“We’ve had a lot of success over the years doing that - they produce very tough horses. I’m a fan of Japanese racing and breeding, and always happy to get my hands on a Japanese mare.”

Japanese racing has, undoubtedly, been on a massive upward curve of late. International raiders from the nation have had a strong impact in recent years, as evidenced by success at the 2021 Breeders’ Cup with Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf and Marche Lorraine (Jpn) (Orfevre {Jpn}) in the G1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff.

Gallery: Japanese-bred horses continue their international influence

Then there was the Japanese domination of the undercard at the Saudi Cup in February earlier this year, shortly followed by Shahryar (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) winning the G1 Dubai Sheema Classic in Dubai in March. Then in April, closer to home, there was the Japanese-bred and -owned G1 Australasian Oaks winner Glint Of Hope (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}).

As Messara’s connection with the Yoshida family stretches back beyond two decades, Arrowfield is increasingly the beneficiary of Japan’s years of massive international investment in top-quality bloodstock - suddenly ‘visionary’ begins to seem a sub-par description.

Of course, part of the Japanese connection extends beyond broodmares, with Arrowfield host to two shuttle stallions. First foals have arrived this year for triple-Group 1 winner Admire Mars (Jpn) (who’s out of a French Group winner) and the increasingly popular Maurice (Jpn), who sired two Australian Group 1 winners in just his first crop here.

“Maurice is a typically tough Japanese horse,” enthused Messara. “He works with everything because he’s such an outcross with everything we’ve got.

“You can put any mare to him because it’s unlikely there will be any doubling up… It works really well here and we’ve bred some nice horses out of Japanese mares over the years.

“He can throw an outstanding animal, Maurice, and they come in all shapes and sizes. He doesn’t necessarily stamp them completely, but they’ve got big hearts and big lungs and we’re going to see some stars come from him in the next few years.”

Gold Coast offerings

Messara noted that the Japanese connection is only set to strengthen in time and was drawn to point out that the catalogue for the upcoming Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale is more evidence of this. Not least amongst Arrowfield’s own draft, two of which are Snitzel youngsters out of Japanese mares.

“There are 46 Snitzels at the sale and we’ve got 10, with varying styles of pedigrees,” Messara reported.

But the Arrowfield chief would not be drawn into revealing which might be making the headlines, instead drawing on his abundant experience to point out that it’s far too early to know.

“I really make no judgement until we get about two weeks from the sale. I see them as foals, I see them in the paddocks over the year, but we get really serious about two or three weeks from the sale.

“They change so much with exercise and the feeding program over that period, that you’ve seen one horse and when you look again two months later he’s completely changed.”