Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan
The $2 million Blue Diamond and $300,000 Silver Slipper. Poles apart in prizemoney, but equally playing their part in shaping this generation and those into the future.
Victoria’s G1 Blue Diamond is rightfully lauded as one of Australia’s most sought after feature races and has an honour roll to match. Sydney’s G2 Silver Slipper doesn’t carry the same lucrative purse, nor prestige, but that doesn’t diminish from its place as a destination where you often find gold.
Running feature races for a similar pool of horses on the same day is not uncommon in Australian racing, particularly modern times.
The Australian Guineas and Randwick Guineas have clashed numerous times over the past decade, splitting the talent pool of 3-year-old milers, each with a Group 1 prize on offer.
Little Brose won the 2023 edition of the G1 Blue Diamond S. | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
The Australian Cup has more often than not clashed with the Ranvet S. in Sydney, or been sandwiched in between that race and the 2400-metre Tancred, again splintering the list of worthwhile weight-for-age middle-distance contenders.
And then of course there’s the spring sprint features, with a rich prize seemingly on offer every week from late September through to early November in two states, forcing connections to make a decision - north or south?
The pattern for the juvenile features is thankfully less crowded and we do get to see the best take on the best as we reach the Golden Slipper in a few weeks’ time.
This Saturday though tends to be a fork in the road; the Grand Final for Victorian juveniles in the G1 Blue Diamond and further north, the G2 Silver Slipper, which has as good a record as any lead-up in identifying a potential Slipper winner.
Saturday will be the fifth time in seven years they have been run on the same day, a result of cementing the Golden Slipper to a fixed weekend in March, as opposed to being at the mercy of the fall of Easter as it was previously.
Yet the two races continue to stand on their own two feet in being a pointer to future success. They in fact stand out among Australia’s 2-year-old features as being two of the most reliable producers of future Group 1 winners and sought after breeding barn progeny.
22 of 52 winners go on to future Group 1 success
We can use 1998 as the comparative year to start from, given that was the year the Silver Slipper switched from the spring to the autumn.
Isolating the winners since then, the Blue Diamond had 10 of the juveniles on their honour roll go on to win at least another Group 1 race – Redoute’s Choice, Bel Esprit, Alinghi (Encosta De Lago), Star Witness, Sepoy, Samaready (More Than Ready {USA}), Miracles Of Life (Not A Single Doubt), Pride Of Dubai, Extreme Choice and Artorius.
Artorius won the 2021 edition of the G1 Blue Diamond S. | Standing at Newgate, image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
That’s a pretty solid strike rate given the sometimes misguided malignment that comes with top level juvenile racing.
However, that number is trumped by the Silver Slipper, which had 12 of its winners go on to subsequent Group 1 success in the same time frame – Excellerator (Marscay), Victory Vein (Mr Henrysee {USA}), Hasna (Snippets), Melito (Redoute’s Choice), Pierro, Sweet Idea (Snitzel), Mossfun (Mossman), Astern, She Will Reign (Manhattan Rain), Sunlight (Zoustar), Farnan and Home Affairs.
Home Affairs won the 2021 edition of the G2 Silver Slipper | Standing at Coolmore, image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan
Putting those respective numbers of 10 and 12 into perspective, both races trump the Golden Slipper, which has had nine winners since 1998 go on to win a further Group 1 event.
Top stallions, high-class broodmares
The Blue Diamond has the edge when we consider winning colts that went on to become Group 1-producing sires themselves, with the tally at six – Redoute’s Choice, Bel Esprit, Star Witness, Sepoy,Pride Of Dubai and Extreme Choice.
The 2009 Diamond winner Reward For Effort doesn’t make that list, but does get an honourable mention as the sire of 10 individual stakes winners.
The Silver Slipper has the quartet of Iglesia, Domesday, Pierro and Astern who have all sired Group 1 winners at stud.
The Silver Slipper also has young guns Farnan (Golden Slipper) and Home Affairs (Coolmore Stud S.) getting every possible chance to add to the list, having retired to stud with two of the most appealing stallion making races in the country on their resumes.
From a Diamond perspective, the race has Written By already making a promising start to his stud career, while Tagaloa and Artorius are recent additions to the list of promising young stallions in Australia.
Tagaloa won the 2020 edition of the G1 Blue Diamond S. | Standing at Yulong, image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
In terms of the fillies that won the respective races, there have been three from each race that have produced subsequent stakes winners.
Ballybleue (Peintre Celebre {USA}), Satin Shoes (Flying Spur) and Mossfun fly the Silver Slipper flag, but they are trumped by Diamond winners True Jewels (Brief Truce {USA}), Danelagh (Danehill {USA}) and Samaready, given the latter two both produced Group 1 winners.
Danelagh produced the ATC Oaks winner Dizelle (Zabeel {NZ}), while Samaready made a glittering start to her stud career with the Magic Millions winner Exhilarates (Snitzel), only to go even better when her son Shinzo (Snitzel) won last year’s Golden Slipper.
Rating to Win
Not surprisingly, ratings analysts have the Blue Diamond ratings superior to the Silver Slipper in most instances when matched up head to head.
Respected analyst Daniel O’Sullivan, whose opinion is sought by some of Australia’s leading trainers and breeders, said there’s a simple reason why the Diamond rates higher on a head-to-head basis – it’s a target race and the other one is where horses are still building towards their grand final.
Using O’Sullivan’s Weight-For-Age Performance Ratings (WPRs), the Diamond leads 7-1 based on the rating each winner earned over the past eight years.
That came in 2018 when Sunlight’s 103 WPR slightly trumped Written By’s 102.
In every other year, the Diamond winner came out on top, headed by Extreme Choice’s 106.5 Diamond win in 2016.
Extreme Choice won the 2016 edition of the G1 Blue Diamond S. | Standing at Newgate, image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
But when we extrapolate the ratings to future success, the score flips, with the Silver Slipper in front 7-1 based on their career high ratings, the standouts being Astern’s 108.7 Golden Rose, Home Affairs’ 105.8 Lightning, Sunlight’s 105.5 Newmarket and Farnan’s 104.5 Slipper.
The Silver Slipper also had Estijaab (Snitzel) place behind Sunlight before turning the tables in the Golden Slipper, adding a bit more lustre to its recent success stories, but the Diamond gets a bit of oomph when we use that criteria too.
Subsequent Coolmore winner Flying Artie placed behind Extreme Choice, while Anamoe would go on from his third placing behind Artorius in 2021 to earn himself a Horse of the Year gong a couple of years later.
What will come next?
So Saturday’s two features can be treated with equal respect. The Blue Diamond will attract a bigger betting pool and likely more limelight.
The Silver Slipper will be run and won earlier in the day without the same amount of fanfare.
But both are more than likely to be a reference point for something even bigger going into the future, be that on the racetrack, or in a breeding barn.
