Backing belief: How great stallions are made, not bought

Cover image courtesy of Waikato Stud

“Wherever you go in the world, there'll be two or three elite horses; the Galileos and the equivalent in America. Then there will be a group of about 10 horses that fluctuate,” Waikato Stud’s Garry Chittick said.

“They don’t quite reach the top, but they’re still very good stallions. And then it drops away below that, but it just shows how difficult it is when there's really only that small number of horses that get to that above average situation.”

Topping a sire premiership is a rare and formidable achievement - one that demands the perfect storm of pedigree, performance, support, and no small amount of luck. While each stallion’s path to success differs, those closest to the champions agree: pedigree sets the foundation, performance earns global respect, and sustained, strategic support is essential to give a stallion his shot.

A sprinkle of speed

Yarraman Park Stud’s Arthur Mitchell keeps his list of desirable traits in a stallion fairly simple; “A bit of performance helps. Looks are important. Precocity. You like to see a bit of 2-year-old speed. They just have to have a bit of everything, really.”

Yarraman Park’s I Am Invincible is the full package in that respect, and his three Champion Sire titles demonstrate what can happen when Mitchell’s selection criteria singles out the right horse.

Turn of foot and precocity were all recurring themes for stallion selectors.

“I think it's great to see some sort of form as a juvenile, especially given the way the market is structured nowadays,” Vinery Stud General Manager Adam White said.

Resident Ole Kirk has well and truly clinched the Champion First Season Sire title, with four stakes winners and over $500,000 in progeny earnings between him and his nearest competitor.

“Everyone wants a quick dollar at the yearling sales and to have every chance of getting their horses in the sales, but I do like to see a stallion that does train on," White added. "Because if you do get a stallion that was (only) a really good 2-year-old, and then they don't do a great job with their first crop as 2-year-olds, you're obviously in trouble.”

“The race performance certainly has a lot to do with determining the service fee and the commercial appeal (of a stallion), and the likelihood of getting outside support as well,” Widden Stud's proprietor, Antony Thompson said.

“Not just the races you won, but the way you won them. Having that 'wow' performance, the thing that really sticks in your mind. There's horses that can win nice races, but if they do it without really making you sit up and take note, it probably doesn't resonate as much with me.

“If a colt is a well-bred or good looking horse that doesn’t have that race record to back it up and doesn't have a stand-out performance yet, it can be the difference between standing for $5000 and $50,000.”

Days from claiming his first Champion Sire crown, Widden Stud’s Zoustar always had the credentials to be a star; the third of his sireline to win the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes, he has had his best season to date, exceeding last season’s prizemoney by $2 million and recording stakeswinners in seven countries.

Chittick serves a slightly different market in New Zealand; while speed still has its place, he also liked to see a horse that could train on if possible, and contribute soundness and longevity to the gene pool.

“I think it's really sad that the industry is retiring a lot of these colts quite early,” he said. “We've got a bit of a situation in our Australasian market, and particularly in Australia at present, where there's a lot of money on offer if you're lucky enough to get a 2-year-old colt that comes up and wins a Sires’ Produce or a Slipper.

“But really, we should be trying to breed horses that people want to race for three and four and five years. Because there's very few colts that will go to stud, aren’t there?

“You don't want to be breeding horses you think will only have 10 lifetime starts and then be finished. That shouldn't be what we're trying to do, in my view.”

An elite pedigree

“We’ve seen Australian colonial speed dominate the sires’ tables here year in, year out,” Newgate Farm’s Henry Field said. “They’re the fastest Australian horses tested under our conditions, so there’s no coincidence that they dominate.”

Sons of elite stallions are highly favourable to Field, who stands two Champion First Season Sires in Extreme Choice and Russian Revolution at Newgate; his roster has this in spades with three sons of four-time Champion Sire Snitzel, and Extreme Choice is joined by two sons of his own. Still, Field notes that hybrid vigour remains an important consideration when selecting stallions.

“I’m not a big believer in sires of sires, but I think sons of exceptional sires certainly have an advantage,” he said. “It's very hard to get good sons, so I would rather have the son of an elite sire than a fashionable one.”

Elite is the word for Ole Kirk’s sire Written Tycoon, who secured the Champion Sire spot in 2021 and has never sunk lower than seventh place since. The same word can easily be applied to the other half of Ole Kirk’s pedigree.

Gallery: Newgate's two Champion First Season Sires, images courtesy of Newgate Farm

“With a horse like Ole Kirk, without sounding too cliche, he did tick all the boxes,” said White. “Not only that, but he ticked them very well. He’s by a Champion Sire in Written Tycoon, his mother is a full sister to Black Caviar, who's probably the best sprinter I've ever seen, and a half-sister to Champion 3YO All Too Hard.

“The pedigree had a lot of strength to it, and he’s free of Danehill, so he had a lot going for him.”

Body of an athlete

Another important criteria that Ole Kirk met was in his physical presence; the ideal stallion stamps his stock, and the Vinery team were duly rewarded when his offspring entered the sales ring.

“We were happy with the physical type (of first foals) that he was giving us,” White said. “When they got to the weanling sales, talking to a lot of industry people, the most common feedback we were getting at that stage was how consistent they were.

“And, of course, that transpired into the first crop heading to the yearling sales, where they sold for up to a million dollars, which was a terrific effort.”

“The physical of the horse is probably top of mind,” Thompson said. “It’s a commercial marketplace, and that’s something that’s a major consideration.”

“(Faults) always come from somewhere,” Chittick said noting that it has to be kept in mind what a stallion could pass on.

“If you look back, the first horse we had real success with was Centaine, and he used to leave quite a number of undershot jaws,” he said.

“It really puzzled me, but when you look back at the sire of his grandam, that was Todman and he was undershot (in the jaw). It always comes from somewhere. You won’t dodge it.”

Only the elite?

A Group 1 win can make a colt all the more enticing, but also can propel him out of reach for many farms. However, that coveted top flight win can be overlooked if the prospect demonstrated he had the genuine potential to reach the top.

“If you look at, for example, I Am Invincible,” Chittick said. “He wasn't a Group 1 winner, but look at the job he's done. So as long as you know they can run and they have that ability to quicken, even if they're not sprinters, they’re worth your time.”

I Am Invincible may be ‘only’ a Group 3 winner himself, but Mitchell identified that genuine Group 1 ability in him as a racehorse and was prepared to back him.

“We always knew with his (I Am Invincible’s) feet issues that he was a very hard horse to train, but we also knew that the horse had probably a lot more ability than he was showing on the track,” Mitchell said.

I Am Invincible may have only had the one crack at the top level, but he put on a Group 1-worthy show, running second to Takeover Target (Celtic Swing {GB}) in the G1 Goodwood Handicap after leading the majority of the way and beating the likes of Magic Millions 2YO Classic winner Augusta Proud (More Than Ready {USA}).

“That was our theory anyway, and it’s paid off.”

Marcus Corban spent 40 years at the helm of Cambridge Stud, most of that time in close partnership with Sir Patrick Hogan; while Hogan is responsible for entire Group 1-winning, Group 1-producing dynasties across Australasia, he was never one to dismiss a horse for missing a top-billing win on his record.

“His (Hogan's) greatest belief was no one's ever told a stallion that he's not a Group 1 winner, so they don't have to be Group 1 winners to be good stallions,” Corban said.

“Patrick didn’t mind faults either. It was well publicised that Sir Tristram had average hocks, but it always opened your mind up to what your broodmare band had and what could work with it, and broadly what would work with New Zealand.”

If a horse was a good fit for the mares, Hogan believed he was worth giving a chance - and that meant backing him all the way.

Patient investment

And that support, or lack thereof, is what could make or break a champion.

“When we stand a horse, he will get three or four years of pretty solid books, and we will support him strongly,” said Mitchell. “It’s not like every year we're getting a new horse. We will get behind our stallion for a good few seasons until he's proven either innocent or guilty.

“We will send some of our better mares to him, and we'll give him a certain amount of numbers. That's what you have to do, because if you're just an outside shareholder, you tend to send a reasonable mare the first year and then downgrade him heavily in the next few years. That's just the way it is.”

“They've got to be managed well and have that support, certainly in the first four seasons of their stud career,” White said.

“We've always been a farm right back to the More Than Ready days - who, of course, was a champion first season sire as well and a great stallion - that’s been very supportive of our stallions, not just with mare numbers, but also supporting their first crop when they come through the yearlings sales. buying into a few and placing them with the right trainers.

“We did that with More Than Ready, and of course we did that last year with Ole Kirk. We bought into half a dozen Ole Kirks at the yearling sales with some strong trainers. We bred (G3 SAJC Breeders' Stakes winner) Legacy Bound and gave him to Robbie Griffiths, and he's been terrific for the stallion in his first year.

“It's something we wanted to back up again this year, but as it turned out, he became a very hot commodity and they were more difficult to get.”

The positive signs from Ole Kirk's offspring continued to come early, which was important vindication in the process of making a champion.

“I think the first real indication (of success) for me personally was the feedback we started to get from the breakers and the early educators,” said White. “And although they're not going fast at that stage, the biggest feedback we were getting at that point was what great brains they had.

“I really believe that that's a big element in why he's done what he's done with his first 2-year-old crop, because they have handled that training pressure that they get as a young horse.”

You’ve got to believe

While everyone loves an early-running juvenile, not every horse will be as quick off the blocks, as Thompson highlighted; “There’s plenty of examples of good stallions not necessarily doing it with their first runners. I think you have to just understand the stallion and the stock he's throwing and how they're progressing.

“The market is very quick to judge, but as a stud master, you probably got a little bit more understanding and intel on the stock. You're better informed and you can have a more patient view sometimes than the market.”

“Patrick always went for results rather than what was commercial in the ring,” Corban said.

“Cape Cross took a couple of years before the market took to him, and the same happened with Tavistock. To be honest, Zabeel was at the turning point that everyone was about to jump off him, then he had Octagonal, and all of a sudden with that 4-year-old crop (in 1998), Champagne and Jezabeel came through, and then his roll started.”

“One of the greatest ironies I have always found is with Savabeel,” Chittick said.

“He won over 1000 metres as a 2-year-old and was third in the Champagne Stakes, but he’s by Zabeel. In his first crop, he had six juvenile winners, including two stakes winners, and the number of people that said to me, ‘you must be disappointed’. And I would say, ‘he’s by Zabeel, what did you really expect?’

“It was difficult to get through that first hump, but once we got there, where he had 3-year-olds, he started making his mark and went from there. If you follow his history, when it came to his fourth crop - when his first crop was on the track - we were practically giving them away. That’s a bitter pill to swallow when you spend $10 million on a horse.”

A bitter pill that has been tempered since by soon-to-be 10-time New Zealand Champion Sire Savabeel’s astronomical success since, which was rewarded with induction to the New Zealand Racing Hall Of Fame earlier this year.

With the end of the season around the corner, he sits NZ$2.4 million clear of his nearest rival in the New Zealand sires’ premiership. Sometimes you just have to stand by your stallion; a champion isn't made overnight.

In Part 2, we’ll explore the fierce battle to secure the next star stallion in an increasingly globalised and commercially volatile market - where competition is high, margins are tight, and timing is everything.