Photo finish! The sires' premierships coming down to the wire

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

The end of the 2025/26 racing season is in sight, and while the late Snitzel is comfortably on track to be crowned Champion Australian Sire for the fifth time, some premierships are not so easily won. Whether it’s winners or money in the bank, a number of the sires’ premierships will be coming down to the wire this year.

Home Affairs goes head to head with Snitzel

Another easy crown to hand out is the first season sire title, which was sewn up for Home Affairs after his son Guest House secured the G1 Golden Slipper Stakes back in March - equalling the feats of Extreme Choice and Danehill (USA) in producing the Slipper winner in their first crop of foals. In May, he also surpassed the record set by Too Darn Hot (GB) for first season sire earnings.

Now, Home Affairs hungers for the 2-year-old sire title as well, a feat also achieved by Extreme Choice in 2021.

Snitzel’s five juvenile stakes winners this season is a feat equalled by no other sire this year, and it is all the more notable that two of them, Fireball and Campione D’Italia, are Group 1 winners as well. He kicked off Thursday with $45,000 more in juvenile progeny earnings than Home Affairs, but the gap has been closing fast.

Home Affairs added two new juvenile winners - Covert Action and Heart’s Affair - to his record on Thursday to take his total to 16 and add $49,550 to his earnings. He is one of just two stallions to have sired more than 10 individual 2-year-old winners on Australian soil this season, the other being Spirit Of Boom.

Table: Home Affairs and Snitzel's 2025/26 juvenile statistics to date

Of Snitzel’s two juvenile runners on Thursday, Majestic Son was third to Covert Action at Cranbourne and Union was third to Heart’s Affair at Kembla Grange. The $7725 earned by the two placings keeps him ahead of Home Affairs by a hair - for now. Less than $4000 separate the two heading into the penultimate weekend of racing for the season.

The last Champion First Season Sires, Ole Kirk and Too Darn Hot, both finished second in the juvenile sire rankings, but with $1 million gaps to the winner. Things were a lot closer in 2021, when then-first season sire Capitalist was beaten by Extreme Choice by less than $115,000.

Wootton Bassett biting at Bivouac’s heels

The tussle for the second season sires’ premiership has been a hot one for some time. As TTR covered in-depth recently, Bivouac and Wootton Bassett (GB) have been fighting over the lead, with just $32,000 separating them before Thursday’s racing.

The last time the second season premiership was anywhere near this close was in 2017, when Foxwedge beat out So You Think (NZ) by $260,000, recording 10 more winners than the second-placed finisher. Dream Ahead (USA) finished that season in the top spot for individual stakes winners with four to his credit, a number already blown past by both sires this year.

Bivouac may have entered Thursday with 10 less winners than Wootton Bassett, but the exploits of Beiwacht, Fireball Miss, and several other talented performers this season put his nose in front. Just last Friday, he added another Kiwi stakeswinner when Actionbelle took out the Listed Castledown Stakes at Otaki.

Wootton Bassett has the lead in terms of both individual winners and stakes winners over his second season peers, with six stakes winners amongst his Southern Hemisphere-born runners this season. On top of the tree is Providence, who claimed the G1 Queensland Derby and booked himself a plane ticket to James Cummings’s Hong Kong stable for next season.

Table: Bivouac and Wootton Bassett's 2025/26 statistics to date

With no further winners for either on Thursday, Bivouac just clings on to his lead.

Three-way battle for most winners

Capitalist, Zoustar, and Toronado (Ire) might not be able to claim a title through prize money, but they are engaged in a three-way fight over who can produce the most winners this season in Australia. All three entered Thursday with in excess of 340 runners each, and just two winners separating them.

Capitalist had his neck out in front with 165 individual winners, equalling his achievements of last season, where he required 17 more runners to hit the same highs. He is less than $400,000 off exceeding his earnings for last season as well, which saw him finish just inside the top 10 by prize money.

With seven individual stakes winners this season led by $1.59 million earner King Of Roseau, he is poised to finish the season in the 12th spot.

Right behind him are Zoustar and Toronado, who opened Thursday with 163 winners each. Last year’s Champion Sire Zoustar is currently also in second spot for progeny earnings with over $21 million in prize money banked - nearly $4.5 million of which is thanks to sprinting star and Royal Ascot-performed Joliestar. He has notched up 12 individual stakes winners for the season, which again sees him second only to Snitzel.

Toronado has enjoyed a super season in Hong Kong, and on home turf, he has produced seven individual stakes winners as well. The head of that pack is G1 JJ Atkins Plate victor Tron Bolt, who looks to have a lucrative 3-year-old spring ahead of him.

Toronado's progeny earnings have just edged him ahead of Capitalist into 10th spot, which would be a career best if he finishes the season in the same position. He is just two individual winners off matching the high he reached last season as well.

Table: Zoustar, Capitalist, and Toronado's 2025/26 statistics to date, prize money correct as of the morning of Thursday 16

With a combined 26 runners between them on Thursday only Capitalist scored any fresh winners, with a 3-year-old double courtesy of Stakeholder and Lady Milan. That brings him in line with Zoustar on winners, but Toronado still keeps ahead based on prize money.