Setting the bar: Calculating expectations for freshman sires

Cover image courtesy of Rosemont Stud

The market craves a precocious 2-year-old, but the reality is that the majority of stallions will not consistently produce an early type and there are a limited number of opportunities for black-type victories for spring juveniles. This doesn’t diminish those stallion’s offspring; racing doesn’t finish at Christmas, and every spring and autumn produces stars who didn’t show their true colours until they were three, or even older.

Even when hopes are high, studs must set realistic expectations for their first season sires, all while closely watching for new nominations and trial runners in each week in the lead up to the sales season. After all, every runner could be a winner, and every winner counts.

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Getting on top of the board

“You’re always hopeful that your stallion will have somewhat of an impact,” said Ryan McEvoy, Rosemont Stud’s general manager for bloodstock. Rosemont resident Extreme Warrior currently sits on top of the first season sires’ table courtesy of metropolitan winner Blandford Baron and Saturday’s Listed Merson Cooper Stakes victor Eternal Warrior.

“It’s not the end of the world if your stallion doesn’t hit the board pre-Christmas, but from our point of view, to have our stallion’s first stakes winner and first metropolitan winner before Christmas is quite important.”

It’s a particularly pleasing feat given the son of Extreme Choice’s first crop of foals, conceived at $24,750 (inc GST), number just 47 from 113 mares. His numbers ring eerily close to those of his father, who covered 118 in his first season for a foal crop of 48.

The rest is history with Extreme Choice, whose current stakes winners to runners strike rate sits at a healthy 11.2% after another strong spring, and while there is no guarantee that lightning will strike twice, McEvoy acknowledges that the early arrival of winners goes a long way.

“I think it’s a really important time from September through to now, you are keeping an eye on the trials and jump-outs, and starting to get a bit of a feel for a stallion’s progeny,” McEvoy said.

“It’s particularly tricky this season for Extreme Warrior, as he’s gone into the season this year with the least amount of live foals relative to his competition in that same crop. To have him now on top of the first season size table by metropolitan winners, stakes winners and earnings as we get into the yearling sales is really encouraging.

“It’s early days, but it tells us his progeny have the appetite to be 2-year-olds, and that’s really important.”

It is especially important to have the momentum into the yearling sales; from a second crop of 38 foals, 11 more than his sire’s second crop, Extreme Warrior will be represented by a colt and a filly at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January.

“A stallion that is producing runners and trial winners establishes a narrative leading into the sales,” said McEvoy. “I'm of the view that a stallion that has a large number of runners to the races early (regardless of winners) is a really positive sign, because that then tells you that the stallion is producing stock that have a natural appetite to get up and go.

“When you've got a first season sire that is a speed horse, which the majority of them are, we all know how important it is to have some impact early. Once you tick that box, I’ve seen time and again that the winners flow on from there.”

Once the seal is broken, out flows the performers. Extreme Choice had six runners and two winners before Christmas with his first crop - by the end of the season that number grew to five, and it included G1 Golden Slipper Stakes winner Stay Inside, G1 BRC Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Tiger Of Malay, and Listed Woodlands Stakes winner Xtremetime.

“If you look at the numbers that Danehill covered in his early seasons, what it tells you is that a high class stallion can certainly make their way through the grades despite having that lower number of live foals,” McEvoy said.

After Eternal Warrior’s win on the weekend, there have certainly been a few more late bookings made to the stallion, who stands this season for $13,200 (inc GST).

“It might be quite a smart play for breeders,” McEvoy said. “This time next year, you might have a November foal by a stallion whose momentum has carried on from what he has done so far.”

The market as the great determinator

For the Coolmore Stud team, the market itself is the great determinator. Three resident sires - Home Affairs, St Mark’s Basilica (Fr), and Acrobat - have their first progeny hit the track this spring, and the market was certainly very keen to get hold of the first foals by Home Affairs.

“Obviously, expectations for Home Affairs have been high,” said Marketing and Nominations Tom Moore. “He had over $32 million worth of yearlings sell this year, in his first year, and he covered a pretty cosmopolitan lineup of mares in his first season. So a lot is expected of him.”

The team have been pleased with the start that the dual Group 1 winner has made, ticking off two winners in New Zealand, one also placing in Listed company, and his first Australian runner I'm Ya Huckleberry running second in the G3 Breeders’ Plate at the start of the season.

“The chatter throughout the country surrounding Home Affairs’s first 2-year-olds is overwhelmingly positive at this stage,” said Moore, and that has in turn correlated with a wave of return investors sending mares back to the stallion for his fourth season at stud, taking advantage of his $82,500 (inc GST) fee. So far, all the checkpoints have been hit.

St Mark’s Basilica has the benefit of a Northern Hemisphere crop leading the way, with his 20 first-crop winners headlined by G1 Prix Marcel Boussac victress Diamond Necklace (Ire).

“He's done a great job in the Northern Hemisphere with his first 2-year-olds, but he himself didn't win his first race as a 2-year-old until August,” said Moore. “So while he has three stakes-winners in Europe, we don’t expect them to be pre-Christmas types, and I think the market is quite happy to be more patient with his offspring.”

That’s not to write it off entirely - St Mark’s Basilica’s sire Siyouni (Fr) boasts three juvenile stakes winners in Australia, including multiple Group-winning juvenile Amelia’s Jewel - but the feedback so far is that trainers and owners are willing to be patient for the foals conceived on his $44,000 (inc GST) fee.

“We've had some extremely good feedback from trainers, that flows back through to breeders, and he will cover more mares this year than either of his last two seasons,” Moore said. “That's a great testament to the organic talk around his progeny. Trainers were very eager to get their hands on them at the yearling sales, and we have seen the same, if not more interest, at the recent ready to run sales. I think the perception of him is greater now than what it was in January of this year.”

The best was not seen of R. Listed Inglis Nursery winner Acrobat on the track, but breeders have recognised the son of Fastnet Rock’s pedigree and have flocked to him since his retirement to stud. As a reward, he has already delivered his first winner with Acrodance over the weekend, who is nominated to back up into the Listed Phelan Ready Stakes this weekend.

“Traditionally, Fastnet rocks weren't overly precocious at two and trainers were prepared to give them a bit of time, but Acrobat himself broke a 2-year-old track record at Randwick over 1000 meters in December,” Moore pointed out. “He comes from a family littered with 2-year-old speed, highlighted by Learning To Fly, who was probably the most talented 2-year-old filly of her generation. So we'd like to think that the Acrobat progeny will make their presence felt at two.”

Some of this is bolstered by the kind of mare that Acrobat has been patronised with, despite starting off at $13,750 (inc GST) - for instance, Acrodance’s dam Irresistible Miss (Choisir) is a half-sister to Group 2-winning Pretty In Pink (Sebring). While the expectations haven’t been as sky high as they have for Home Affairs, it seems only natural that he has gotten off the mark early.

Greatness gives you confidence

Darley’s Head Of Stallions Alastair Pulford has nothing to fear with Pinatubo (Ire), whose first Southern Hemisphere-bred juveniles have hit the track this spring, and Anamoe, whose first crop of yearlings head to the Gold Coast in January. When you stand horses of the highest quality - Pinatubo stood his first season at $55,000 (inc GST) and Anamoe at $121,000 (inc GST) - you have the room to be a little bit confident that they will deliver.

Even so, he is respectful of the pool of sires that both have to compete with.

“You’re hopeful, but you've also got to be realistic,” he said. “The competition is very strong. While both of them were fantastic horses in their own right - Pinatubo was the best 2-year-old in England in the last 25 years, Anamoe was a pre-Christmas 2-year-old all the way through to a weight-for-age champion - and our expectations are naturally high, nothing is ever certain in this business.”

The Godolphin team are always pragmatic with their expectations of their stock, but it certainly helps when you start with champions.

“These horses have every reason to be at stud, they have had every reason to attract the support they have received from breeders around Australia, so now it’s up to them to prove themselves. Their offspring don’t need to prove themselves better than their own race records, because they were so good themselves.”

Pinatubo has started on the right foot; his first two Australian runners, Tales Of Time and Carnevale, ran second and fourth respectively in the G3 Maribyrnong Plate. He has had a number of good runners hit the trials, and if the feats of his Northern Hemisphere foals are anything to go by, there’s a quiet confidence that he could reproduce the same results down south.

“Pinatubo has started off on a positive note here, and we hope that continues,” Pulford said.

Pinatubo posted 22 winners and one stakes winner with his first Northern Hemisphere juveniles, who are a year ahead of their Southern Hemisphere counterparts. He has added another 20 juvenile winners in 2025, plus 36 winning 3-year-olds as his stakes tally has grown to five. Pulford anticipates his offspring may be quicker off the block down under.

“The pedigrees and aptitudes of the mares he has been getting in each hemisphere are very different,” he said. “He seems to be producing more stamina orientated horses in Europe. He was a very, very well credentialled first season sire so he was getting a lot of good mares, and a lot of the best mares in England are mile and a quarter, mile and a half mares. Here, he’s covered a lot more sprinter-milers, and his first two runners have proven the case already with their runs at Melbourne.”

Pulford pointed to Harry Angel (Ire) as another Darley stallion who has meshed well with the speed breeding in Australia; “He's showing a preference for the Australian speed mares. He's getting more speed here than he is in the Northern Hemisphere. Pinatubo may well be the same.”

While only three have made it to raceday so far, this number doesn’t differ much from the other first season sires, and the feedback from trainers of Pinatubo’s offspring has been more than encouraging to date.

“There's a couple of trainers that are reasonably excited by what they've got so far, so let's just hope that translates into raceday success,” Pulford said. “It's never a guarantee in this business, but if you're starting with a horse that could run, who's by a leading stallion and it has the female line to back it up, you're starting with a much better chance, aren't you?”

It’s up to the judges now

As studs count down the days to the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in January, the attention turns to the stallions with their first yearlings taking the stage. Hopes are high at Coolmore for Best Of Bordeaux, who has benefited from a shareholder group keen to see him succeed.

“Best Of Bordeaux is a horse with a shareholder base that have been extremely supportive of him, and they have supported him with quality mares,” said Moore of Coolmore’s eldest son of Snitzel, who has 11 of his first yearlings, from a debut crop of 76, catalogued for Magic Millions in January.

“He was a very fast son of Snitzel. Snitzel as a sire of sires is doing a great job at the moment - he had another Group 1 winner as a sire of sires on the weekend - and Best Bordeaux is one of the best 2-year-old colts Snitzel ever produced, so we're quite optimistic heading towards the first run of yearling sales with him.”

“It’s up to the judges at Magic Millions and the rest of the yearling sales now for Anamoe,” Pulford said. Thirty three from Anamoe’s first crop of 104 foals head to the Gold Coast.

“The Anamoes that I've seen are very handsome, good looking animals, but they're quite big and scopey for the most part, so whether they're going to be early remains to be seen. He was an extremely talented 2-year-old himself, so you wouldn’t be entirely surprised, but since he was also a weight-for-age performer at four, you would expect them to get better and better as they get older.”

And if they don’t hit their straps until three, then so be it. There is no fear at Darley if they have to wait a little bit longer.

As Pulford rightfully points out, “just look at Ghaiyyath.”