The unpredictability of predicting stallion success

Cover image courtesy of Arrowfield Stud

If there was a magic formula for sire success, surely someone would have found it by now. So far, that isn’t the case; while there are common threads amongst the top stakes-producing stallions across Australia, there are just as many differences. So what makes one new recruit more worth the risk than others?

From the 33 stallions with four or more individual stakeswinners this season, 24 were based in Australia, four were based in New Zealand, and five either shuttled down under at some stage or, in the case of Sea The Stars (Ire), stand solely overseas. With a fee range between $9900 (inc GST) and $275,000 (inc GST) for those standing this season, it appears that success can come from anywhere, if you know where to look.

Performance is paramount

Most can agree that a stallion is all the more appealing if they were an exceptional racehorse on the track, and it makes it a lot easier job to sell them to breeders.

“For us, performance is paramount,” Darley’s Head of Stallions Alastair Pulford. “A genuine Group 1 star probably gets to go to stud no matter his pedigree or his looks. Performance is the key thing, and when you've got a multiple Group 1 winner who's got form from early on, right through his career, that's obviously very desirable.”

From the 33 stallions in the above criteria, 24 won Group 1 races, six won at Group 1 at two and 16 won their first Group 1 at three. Furthermore, 27 raced at two, 16 of which won their first stakes races in their juvenile season.

“You can have the best bred horse in the world, but if he doesn't perform on the track he's unlikely to find a spot at stud, and even if he does, it's going to be at a low fee. He's going to have to make it on his own account.”

Darley residents Anamoe and Broadsiding are exemplary recruits for this criteria, but Pulford points out that Traffic Warden, who also enters stud this year, is of higher quality than what first appears on his race record.

“While Traffic Warden didn’t win a Group 1, he came within 40 centimetres of winning two Group 1s, so he’s certainly a Group 1 quality horse. He showed that on more than one occasion, so we have every confidence in standing a horse with his ability.”

The bar is higher for shuttle horses; this year, Darley will bring five over, with Too Darn Hot (GB) the obvious headline act with 10 individual stakes winners this season.

“A great example of a top pedigree is Too Darn Hot,” Pulford said. “He’s a Group 1 champion, by a Group 1 winner out of a Group 1 winner, and all four of his grandparents are Group 1 winners. He has got an amazing depth of pedigree, and it's not to say that guarantees them success, but it's obviously worked in his case.

“Generally, the horses we bring over nowadays would be multiple Group 1 winners rather than just one-time Group 1 winners. They've got to have proved themselves at the highest level. It's harder for a shuttle stallion (to generate interest) just because they're unknown to the racing market here and the breeding market.

“Whilst the appreciation for and knowledge of international racing has increased over the years, it is still vital for us to bring very high class horses with pedigrees and looks to match. You have to be a lot more pedantic than you would with a locally-bred horse, because the local horse is just that much better known.”

Brent Atwell, who manages Darling View Thoroughbreds for his father Clive Atwell, can draw a direct comparison between resident stallion Lightsaber, who welcomed his first foals last spring, and Traffic Warden.

“If he (Lightsaber) had gotten a Group 1, I dare say he wouldn’t have landed at Darling View,” Atwell said. “But he raced against some very good horses - he raced Anamoe. (Fellow Darling View stallion) Splintex raced against the best sprinters in the country and I think he ended up beating 10 individual Group 1 winners along the way, but didn’t win a Group 1 himself.”

“You always want a good pedigree if you can get it,” Harry McAlpine, nominations for Eureka Stud, said. “But the performance is probably slightly above pedigree. It’s a bit of a balancing act.”

Eureka Stud’s flagbearer Spirit Of Boom certainly falls into the category of a top performer, and has produced four individual stakes winners to date this season, including the unstoppable Shining Smile, who recorded his fifth straight win at the weekend.

“They don't come around often, but if they've been consistently performing at the highest level over multiple seasons, they haven't got much left to prove,” McAlpine added.

What's on the page

Swettenham Stud also shuttles stallions, although Toronado (Ire) has been a permanent resident since the winter of 2022; on the track, he debuted as a juvenile, but his best racing came as a 3-year-old or older.

“It’s not just one factor that’s more important than the other,” Swettenham’s Nominations Marcus Heritage said. “At Swettenham, our reputation is that we really focus on sirelines that are in demand from the market, both that are commercial and produce good racehorses. We try to put ourselves in the breeders’ shoes; what are they looking for? That ultimately guides our direction when it comes to what stallions we stand.”

Atwell acknowledged that sometimes performance can be allowed to be a little light if the pedigree is strong. Soundness and endurance win over the presence of top level wins, at least out west.

“We have to be a bit more forgiving in Western Australia,” Atwell said. “We have to try and tick as many boxes as we can, but obviously it's very hard to compete with the rest of the country as far as purchasing these kinds of horses.

That was a feeling McAlpine agreed with; both the buying power and the depth of quality in the local broodmare population made competing to secure elite performers on the track difficult. But you can always focus on other criteria.

“I look for horses that are sound, clean winded, and can train on," Atwell continued. "I look at a horse like (Darling View resident) Playing God who raced well as a 2-year-old, and then raced extremely well as a three and 4-year-old. His stock now just get better and better with age.

“Perhaps on the East coast, we don’t get to see that as often because the value in these horses is too high to continue racing.”

A perfect example of a rock solid pedigree is Swettenham Stud resident Lofty Strike, Heritage pointed out; by Snitzel out of a G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner, his biggest win was the G2 Rubiton Stakes at three, but his pedigree suggests he could easily produce a high quality juvenile that could go one better. Heritage believes he can tread the same path as stallions like I Am Invincible and Written Tycoon, who still dominate the rankings despite no top flight win on their record.

“There’s been so many top stallions who didn’t get that Group 1 win,” Heritage said. “It’s not the be all and end all for us. Some breeders say they won’t breed to a horse if it’s not a Group 1 winner, but that’s a bit narrow minded.”

The collection of top stakes-producing stallions is a reminder that people like to return to the well from where they’ve had success before; 24 of the stallions originate from the Northern Dancer (Can) line, two are from the Sir Tristram (Ire) line and one from the Halo (USA) line that both descend from Northern Dancer’s grandfather Nearco (Ity).

Five stallions descend from Mr Prospector (USA), whose most recent common ancestor with Northern Dancer is Phalaris (GB) at the beginning of the 20th century. Just one - Spirit Of Boom - deviates from the line even earlier, with the last common ancestor being Whalebone (GB) a century before.

But Northern Dancer overwhelmingly prevails. His greatest influence remains through Danehill (USA), responsible for eight of the top stakes producers.

“If something’s not broken, don’t fix it,” Atwell said. “If you can find a nice horse with that Northern Dancer. Danzig, Danehill pedigree, you know it’s a proven winning method. I guess we've got to try and give a balance to our breeders though.”

What the market wants

“We want to stand something that appeals to the wider Australian mare pool,” Heritage said. “Generally, at the moment, speed is what people want. There’s been a lot of talk around the cost of breeding horses, and I think what's really played into that is people want to return on investment a bit quicker. If it's going to be something that's too dour, and takes four or five years to get to the track, people just won't touch it. The buyers won't touch it.”

“I think the market, obviously, these days tends towards the shorter races,” Pulford agreed. “But as TTR have been discussing over the last few weeks, with this plethora of European horses, I'm a bit concerned that our breeding has become very one dimensional - that's just my personal opinion.

“If you're not a six furlong horse, you don't really get a look in until you're proven, so then it's up to the stallion farms to maybe take a risk on a horse that falls outside that six furlong parameter.”

Speed remains the most valuable currency across the nation.

“We have to breed what the market wants,” is how McAlpine put it. “We’ve bred Oaks winners here, but I just think the market up here probably leans more towards the 2-year-olds and sprinters. There’s nothing better than a horse that can win sprinting juvenile races and then stretch out to a mile or further at three, but they have to be very difficult to breed.”

“I do love a stallion that got to the races early because that stallion is probably more likely to throw a suitable yearling for the sales,” Heritage said. “If they're precocious at two, chances are they'll probably produce a nice, precocious type of yearling as well.”

Although that hasn’t always been the case - exemplified by Swettenham Stud’s I Am Immortal, who Heritage shared has predominantly produced types that would improve as they got older. Swettenham foresaw this development with the stallion's first yearlings, and was prepared to see them blossom better at three.

Give them a chance

How quickly can we expect to see fireworks? Of course, it varies - and part of that comes down to what we believe the stallion should be producing. The youngest stallion - and only first season sire - to produce four or more stakes winners this season is Vinery Stud's Ole Kirk, who also leads the first season sire rankings across all metrics. From the second crop sires, Too Darn Hot is joined by Castelvecchio (six stakes winners) and Cosmic Force (four stakes winners).

“Their first crops are an indication,” Pulford said. “But obviously depending on the horse himself and whether he was a good juvenile or a good 3-year-old, you'd give them a couple of years with runners. But by the time his oldest progeny are turning four, the writing is definitely on the wall.”

“If they are bred to get 2-year-olds and they get to the end of their first season and haven't had a winner, alarm bells are going off,” Heritage said. “But if you have a stallion that has a family that’s been better as three and 4-year-olds, and he hasn't done much in his first 2-year-old season, as long as he’s throwing nice types and giving us the confidence that there's enough there, you can push on and still be pretty bullish about him. It just depends on the horse.”

Industry pressures to generate a quick return for all involved means that most still expect - or hope - to see something stirring early within the first season.

“I really do like to see some sort of ability by around Christmas and just early in the New Year,” Atwell said. “You've got to see something, whether it's a trial or whether it’s at the races. You got to see something popping up - otherwise, you’re not going to get rid of the stallion straight away, but you’re fighting an uphill battle.”

“Being a small farm and not standing a lot of stallions, we really get behind them, because if we don't support them heavily, we don't stand a chance against the bigger commercial farms, ” McAlpine said. “So we give them a lot of support in those first four years until they have had their first runners, and generally by then, you've got a bit of a sense of where they're going to be any good or not.”

Hopefully, you have chosen wisely, and backed the stallion who is going to hit the ground running.

“You’re got to find a stallion that's got a lot more positives (than negatives) and you can sell yourself on," McAlpine added. "You got to believe in them. It's a big investment for four years, and if you get it wrong, you've poisoned a lot of mares along the way.”