The next big thing: Why finding a future champion stallion has never been tougher

Cover image courtesy of Arrowfield

The champion stallion is a difficult animal to produce to begin with, requiring many things to fall into place, but even purchasing stallion prospects has become increasingly difficult at the top end. It has become an ever tighter competition to secure a shrinking pool of colts that meet the right criteria.

But you still have to buy a prospective champion in the first place.

“The moment you drop your sights, you breed a lesser horse,” Waikato Stud’s Garry Chittick said. “It’s a pretty difficult equation to beat.”

Stiff competition

“It's gotten terribly hard to find stallions in this country especially,” Yarraman Park Stud’s Arthur Mitchell said, citing high competition for the country’s best colts. Much as the Yarraman park team are keen to invest in their next star, the market has grown narrower than ever.

“There’s certainly horses that have come to be sold for a lot of money in the last five years. They’re becoming very expensive. We’d love another stallion, but we don’t want to go into a bidding war with four other studs for a Group 2 winner.”

Chittick shared that Waikato Stud, whose roster includes a rising star in Super Seth, have been on the hunt for a new stallion for the last 12 months, but the right horse has yet to come along.

“There are 8000 colts born a year between New Zealand and Australia, and by the end of any 3-year-old year, there's probably a maximum of six that everybody wants,” Chittick said. “Now, it's not to say that some of those that are just outside that top group of six are not going to make it. Obviously, they do make it if you give them an opportunity, but they're a lot harder to make.”

“I think people just get into them (promising colts) a lot quicker than what they used 15 to 20 years ago,” Vinery Stud’s General Manager Adam White said. “(Back then) you could, to a certain extent, almost wait for them to win a Group 1 and then pick them up, but now it's a smaller pool, so to speak, and you've got to maybe take a bit more of a punt than you normally would.”

This year alone, a number of high profile horses have changed hands - or, at the very least, been bought into - by entities seeking stallion prospects. Yulong have made bold moves in the past 12 months to expand the future of their roster, adding Carl Spackler (Ire), Angel Capital (Harry Angel {Ire}), Vinrock (I Am Invincible), and shares in the unbeaten Private Harry (Harry Angel {Ire}) to their portfolio with the intention of racing on at least another season before retiring to stud.

Gallery: New additions to the Coolmore roster

The stiff competition for horses still racing means many must turn to acquiring horses as yearlings and hoping to develop a star. Coolmore Stud have long cornered this market, purchasing new roster additions Private Life and Switzerland as yearlings, and regularly spending millions to acquire prospective colts at the sales. Tom Magnier purchased a further 13 yearling colts this sale season, including the full brother to Switzerland.

Syndicates that specifically target colts with the express purpose of developing a stallion prospect are key features on the buyers’ lists at all major Australasian sales; TFI and Kia Ora Stud have developed a partnership targeting colts, and the China Horse Club-led colts’ syndicate signed the docket on 18 colts this sale season.

“I think we've got to keep a very open mind with our approach (to new stallions),” White said. Vinery Stud moved in on Ole Kirk after his back-to-back Group 1 wins, but there is the ever-present risk that someone else might move in faster next time. “We've been lucky where we bought Exceedance and Headwater as yearlings with some good partners, and they raced well, had good pedigrees, and basically gave themselves a chance at stud.”

A strict checklist

The narrow aperture of what they seek is due largely to what best suits both Waikato Stud’s mares and the broader New Zealand industry.

“The first thing you have to remember is that we run a lot of mares of our own, so it's always in our mind that we want to breed a type of horse, we just don't want to sell a service,” Chittick said. “It’s not an easy thing to do. We basically don't look at 1200-metre horses. There's nothing wrong with them, but it's just not our go. I’m not saying you wouldn’t stand one, but they don’t really suit our mares.

“So when you take those horses out of the picture, the spread of stallions you can pick from is much smaller.”

The softer market and lower benchmark for fees in New Zealand puts Kiwi studs at a disadvantage when they cross the Tasman in search of new stallion prospects.

“The dearer a colt is, the harder it is for us to make it work,” Chittick said. “If you go back 30, 40 years, all of our stallions were predominantly European blood, and not necessarily top performers. Then when we switched to ‘colonial-breds’ and obviously we've had a lot of success with it.

“But the problem is, of course, the more success we have, the more success there was that everybody could copy. That means that the horses that we do like, all of a sudden, they start looking at. We were able to go across Australia 15 to 20 years ago and get the Pins of this world, the Danasingas at a pretty reasonable price, which now we can't. They're very expensive, if you're trying to get something that's raced at the top level.”

The 2024/25 season in particular hasn’t turned out many Classic-type prospects that suit the New Zealand model; every Derby was won by either a filly or a gelding this season, and all three colts to win a Guineas - Private Life, Broadsiding, and Savaglee (NZ) (Savabeel) - are already tied up with studs. With Australian racing's emphasis on speed, the pool of stallions that both appeal and are available to the Kiwis shrinks even further.

The next great prospect may be hiding much closer to home, as it has in the past for Chittick.

“We had a remarkable amount of success with O’Reilly, and of course, we only had him because he was failed by the vet (at the sales),” he said. “He’s left 100 stakes winners, and he’s been a very good broodmare sire as well. My point being was that, with the best will in the world and all the knowledge in the world, we were happy to sell him and would have sold him.”

And the success story could have been someone else’s.

International blood

The net has to be cast farther afield - both Mitchell and Chittick have explored prospects in Europe, although Mitchell acknowledged that, even in Europe, the competition for stallion prospects not already tied to a leading operation has grown fiercer. The recent success of Dark Angel (Ire), claiming a Champion Sire title in Britain and Ireland last year, and his son Harry Angel (Ire) has contributed to this.

“The way it (the Dark Angel sireline) has started its own dynasty is really incredible,” said Mitchell. He noted that previous members of the line to shuttle, such as Royal Applause (GB) and Waajib (Ire), had been poorly received down under, but the tide had turned now.

“It makes it very hard to buy (stallions) in Europe now. It’s very hard for us to go there, because the Irish and English studs have gotten hold of the fast ones, whereas years ago, they didn’t want the 2-year-old stallions, but they’ve jumped on them now. It’s made it a lot more expensive.”

“We are now looking back at Europe because we have just found it difficult to find anything in Australia,” Chittick said.

Farms in both Australia and New Zealand have continued to form reciprocal relationships with European studs, and the 2025 cohort of new stallions is perhaps one of the strongest to date; through relationships with Coolmore, multiple Group 1 winner Auguste Rodin (Ire) will shuttle to Windsor Park Stud alongside Paddington (GB), and Group 1-winning juvenile Henry Longfellow (Ire) heads to Rosemont Stud.

There are even newcomers to the European stallion game, with Riverstone Lodge set to stand their first stallion when Breeders’ Cup-winning juvenile Starlust (GB), a son of Zoustar, arrives in the Hunter Valley.

Widden Stud’s Antony Thompson has turned his attention to the United States in search of his next star. Part of the attraction with Widden’s new recruit Cogburn (USA) was the new strains of Northern Dancer (Can) he will contribute to the gene pool; his sire Not This Time (USA) comes from the Storm Cat (USA) branch of Northern Dancer blood that has also provided us with Justify (USA).

Not This Time has already produced seven Group 1 winners from six crops to the track, just one behind Justify’s record from four Northern Hemisphere crops.

“I was initially interested in getting Not This Time to shuttle to Australia,” Thompson said. “It came clear pretty quickly that wasn’t likely to happen, so I looked at his sons and Cogburn was the obvious choice. While you’re always looking for new sirelines, you are also looking out for proven, successful sirelines, if you think the stallion will suit the mare population.”

Having experienced so much success with More Than Ready (USA), White isn’t opposed to sourcing another shuttle stallion.

“Given how difficult it is to get those new prospects for us, you've got to look at every avenue, really, and we're starting to keep a bit of an eye on some horses overseas,” he said. “In the early Vinery days, we had probably two of the best shuttle horses in More Than Ready and Red Ransom, they were two stallions that we recognised would cross quite well with the amount of Danehill mares that we had at that time in Australia.

“We've just been just keeping an open mind and having a look at what's overseas that might bring a bit of a diverse pedigree and have that race record that would give them an opportunity here.”

Local investment

If a stud sees something they like, they can’t wait to pounce. Newgate Farm’s Ozzmosis is one such example; the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes-winning son of Zoustar was quick to attract the attention of Newgate and partners, who bought into the colt after he won a Randwick juvenile handicap in the June of his 2-year-old season.

“The shuttle horse has certainly got a valuable place in the gene pool, and very good ones can really move the needle," said Henry Field, who shares globetrotting Group 1 winner State Of Rest (Ire) with Rathbarry Stud in Ireland. “But the majority of them have a far smaller strike rate at becoming important long-term stallions.”

In contrast to his peers, Field hasn’t felt it quite so difficult to secure the kind of horse that fits his stud model. Heavy investment by the colts syndicate at the yearling sales and early identification of potential on the track has set him in good stead.

Similar to Ozzmosis, Newgate's partnership bought into Profiteer a month before his R. Listed Inglis Millennium victory, and they also purchased and raced a number of the current roster after a Group 1 victory - including Artorius, Extreme Choice, and State Of Rest.

James Harron’s colts partnership has been another source of talent; G1 Golden Slipper Stakes-winning Newgate sire Capitalist ran in Harron’s green and gold colours, and beyond the Newgate roster, the partnership has procured and raced future stallions King’s Legacy, Bodyguard, and Pariah.

Field may have a young roster, but the abundance of local talent is what gives him faith going forward.

“We've got two very exciting second season stallions in Ozzmosis and King’s Gambit that we think have great credentials, and among our third season stallions we have a Cox Plate winner, a Golden Rose winner, and a Blue Diamond winner,” he said. “We're very loaded up with high quality, Australian Group 1-winning horses. I think we’re really set up for the future.

“We’re always on the lookout (for another), but you’ve got to find horses that you believe in.”

A lasting legacy

Cambridge Stud’s Sir Tristram (Ire) and Zabeel (NZ) have the distinct honours of being the only multiple Australian Champion Sires to have been based in New Zealand. They are both the result of careful pedigree research by Sir Patrick Hogan, matched with the support of the stud’s mares. Over the years, Hogan forged close relationships with the descendants of Nureyev (USA), both a topline stallion and considered one of the best broodmare sires of his time.

“He (Hogan) really liked to study the pedigree, he did like Special (Nureyev’s dam), who has been very successful on the female side of a lot of the good families in New Zealand,” Marcus Corban said. “That was one of the reasons he really liked Stravinsky, and Zabeel was another that he really liked, being out of a Nureyev mare.

“We had a lot of good, solid old families (at Cambridge Stud), so he did a whole lot of work with pedigree, and if he liked a horse, he would look at his broodmare band and study the pedigrees to see what would work between them.”

The impact of Nureyev is still quietly active in Australia and New Zealand; he stars in Dundeel’s (NZ) female pedigree as Zabeel’s damsire - and thus appears in Savabeel’s pedigree as well - and his male line grandson Thorn Park has three sire sons who have produced stakes winners, with Ocean Park (NZ) firmly ensconced on the Waikato Stud roster.

Hogan’s long-term association with Coolmore led to Nureyev’s son Stravinsky (USA) shuttling to New Zealand for 10 seasons, where he not only produced dozens of stakes winners, but also his daughters have become an important part of the fabric of the Kiwi broodmare population. Corban outlined that Hogan recognised the importance of having a Champion Sire’s genetics circulating in the gene pool.

“We went to Redoute’s Choice at the height of his career, as well as Encosta De Lago,” Corban said. “Patrick would take five or six mares over to Encosta De Lago at his most expensive (service fee). He went to those top stallions to get daughters, which would enhance his broodmare band.”

Champions beget champions. The cross of Encosta De Lago and Redoute’s Choice has forged this season’s Champion Sire Zoustar, and Danehill (USA) drives the damsire pedigree for both of Zoustar’s sons retiring to stud this season.

I Am Invincible and Written Tycoon have built their own legacies as champions, but the blood of champions flows through them both, perhaps just in less obvious places - for instance, Sir Ivor (USA), the sire of Sir Tristram, rears his head in I Am Invincible’s paternal side. Perhaps the next champion requires a little bit more of a punt.