Bill's Columns

Australian racing and breeding have been bounding forward at an impressive rate for the last ten years and the Australian industry is now a model example of the level of prize money necessary to entice ordinary citizens into horse ownership. With the added advantage of a big market in Hong Kong and other successful Asian racing countries which do not have breeding programs, the Australian auction markets have not surprisingly reached all-time highs. Kentucky has Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton; Europe has Tattersalls, Goffs, and Arqana; and Australia has Sydney-based Inglis and Magic Millions, based on the Gold Coast, near Brisbane.

The Australasian yearling auction calendar, conveniently for keeping track of, gets underway just after the beginning of the calendar year, and the major yearling auctions run through Inglis’s Easter Yearling Sale, now permanently positioned in early April. Magic Millions kicked off the 2019 Australasian yearling sales season with a series of sales beginning Jan. 9 with its four-day Book 1, which broke last year’s record gross for an Australian yearling sale as 719 yearlings – an incredible 81% of those catalogued – brought a total of A$170,762,500, and averaged A$237,500. The gross was up 8% from last year’s record total of A$156,985,000, while the average gained 5%, from A$225,878. And besides the bare figures, all reports indicate the energy levels also continued at record highs, including a healthy contingent of what they call ‘internationals’ from Europe, America, and Asia.

The last decade has also seen the ascendance of Danehill’s two best Australian-bred sons, Arrowfield’s Redoute’s Choice and Coolmore’s Fastnet Rock. Both have been Champion Sire, Redoute’s Choice three times and Fastnet Rock twice; Redoute’s choice has also sired another Champion Sire, Arrowfield’s Snitzel, who has won the last two Sire Championships and is well on his way to a third. Also Redoute’s Choice is carving out an impressive record as a broodmare sire: he was runner-up to Encosta De Lago as Champion Broodmare Sire last season, and is in the lead this season. Of Australia’s two best young sires, he’s the damsire of top second-season sire Zoustar (who is by Encosta De Lago’s short-lived but influential son, Northern Meteor); and he’s proving a terrific cross under Australia’s top third-season sire, Pierro. For good measure Redoute’s Choice is the sire of Australia’s top 3-year-old this season, The Autumn Sun.

Redoute’s Choice was the top-selling sire on average in Magic Millions Book 1 with 10 or more sold, with his 15 yearlings sold averaging A$549,667, including three of the sale’s eleven millionaires. Darley’s Medaglia D’Oro was the leading sire by average with more than one sold, as two of his four which sold were seven-figure sales, so his four overall averaged A$633,750. Ranked among those with 10+ sold, number two on average and number one by sales revenue was I Am Invincible, Yarraman Park’s rags-to-riches son of Invincible Spirit who would surely be Champion Sire this season except for that pesky Snitzel, whose Redzel made it two-for-two in Australia’s A$13-million Everest, for sprinters, run in October, and who is also sire of the Godolphin filly, Exhilarates, who won the A$2-million Magic Millions 2-year-old sales race on Jan. 12.

I Am Invincible, meanwhile, is number two on the 2018-19 Australian General Sire list, for the third straight season, but this season he is already the sire of 19 SW. Snitzel has a A$6.5-million break on him on the progeny earnings list, but no one is in any doubt that I Am Invincible is also a world-class sire, which is reflected by the stat that he had no fewer than 56 yearlings sell in Magic Millions Book 1, grossing A$24,645,000, and averaging A$440,089, including four millionaires. Fastnet Rock (17/A$377,353, including one millionaire) was third by average, Snitzel fourth (33/A$366,870), with Zoustar, who stands at Widden in Australia and is about to commence his first Northern Hemisphere season at part-owner Qatar Racing’s stallion hub in England, Tweenhills (for a bargain £25,000), fifth by Magic Millions Book 1 average as he had 40 yearlings average A$320,375, including his first seven-figure yearling.

Four other sires averaged between A$250,000-A$300,000: Victoria’s Woodside Park Stud’s Written Tycoon (by Iglesia, a son of Last Tycoon), from by far his best book of mares yet, had 40 yearlings average A$292,125. Widden’s Sebring (More Than Ready), had 30 average A$289,833; Arrowfield’s Not A Single Doubt, another by Redoute’s Choice, had 27 yearlings average $289,259; and Yarraman Park’s Hinchinbrook, a ¾-brother to Snitzel by Fastnet Rock who unfortunately died not long before the last covering season started, had 22 yearlings average A$268,636. Darley’s veteran Exceed And Excel, by Danehill himself, rounded out the top ten with 10+ sold, as he had 17 yearlings average A$232,059.

These older proven sires are so much in demand, it didn’t leave much room for younger sires. Among sires with their first 3-year-olds now racing, Zoustar, as mentioned, did crash into the top five, with a A$320,375 average. Australia’s number two second-crop sire is Queensland’s own Spirit of Boom; he stands at Eureka Stud, had the one-three finishers in the A$2-million Magic Millions 3YO Guineas (1400m), and had 14 MM Book 1 yearlings average A$158,214.

Three sires with their first 2-year-olds averaged just over A$200,000 from their second crops of yearlings: Darley’s Brazen Beau, I Am Invincible’s first top horse, had 10 yearlings average A$220,750; Newgate’s Deep Field (Northern Meteor) had 20 average A$202,500; and Coolmore’s Rubick (Encosta De Lago) had 10 average A$202,000. The veteran Vinery stallion More Than Ready (20/A$220,750) and Coolmore’s leading third-crop sire, Pierro (Lonhro, 23/A$200,435) completed the list of 15 sires with 10+ sold to average over A$200,000. Leading first-crop sire was Coolmore’s Vancouver (Medaglia D’Oro), who had 28 yearlings average A$185,714, to rank 16th.

Next up: New Zealand Bloodstock holds their Karaka Yearling Sales series at their much-admired complex, just outside Auckland, from Jan 27-Feb 3, with their big Karaka Race Day at Ellerslie race course on Jan. 26. Karaka Book 1 is a four-day sale, Jan. 27-30. Last year 559 yearlings sold in Karaka Book 1, grossing NZ$83,549,000, and averaging NZ$155,007. Their headline sire is Waikato Stud’s four-time Champion NZ Sire Savabeel, a son of Zabeel, himself the best sire son of the legendary Sir Tristram. Savabeel, who had five yearlings average A$303,000 in MM Book 1 (don’t worry, he’s very well respected in Australia – they will buy plenty of them at Karaka, though like so many from New Zealand he’s more of a ‘two-turn’ sire), has 70 of the 698 yearlings catalogued to Karaka Book 1. That’s ten percent of the catalogue.

I mentioned, in my column last week, that the APEX method of rating sires – essentially an improved variation of the average-earnings index – actually produces 17 different ratings, based on class, age, and region. Today we want to focus on six different ‘Top 50’ tables, among 423 North American and European sires with 200+ ‘year-starters’ 2012-2018 (an individual horse is counted as one ‘year-starter’ each year it runs, so one horse in theory could count as many as seven year-starters).

The APEX method identifies three class levels. ‘A Runners’ are the top two percent of earners in each jurisdiction (i.e. North America) each year; ‘B Runners’ are the next two percent; ‘C Runners’ are the next four percent, and ‘ABC Runners’ are the top eight percent, combined. In North America, in 2018, a horse had to earn around $137,000 to qualify as an A Runner; $98,000 for B Runners; and $67,000 for C Runners. While it may be somewhat painful to note that sires who stand for $100,000 are very good at siring C Runners, at least, if a horse is among the top 8% of earners, it will be earning its keep.

Four very important ‘Top 50’ tables we run are the leaders by A Runner Index and ABC Runner Index, and by number of A Runners and ABC Runners. The two categories by number of success stories obviously favour older sires who have had time to have more runners, or, more accurately, they penalize younger sires which haven’t had as much opportunity. Thus Frankel, the top North American/European sire by both A Runner Index (6.65) and ABC Runner Index (2.89), is nowhere near the top in the ‘numbers’ categories since his runners have been racing for only three years, while other top sires will have had runners for up to seven.

Last week we ran the top sires by 2012-2018 A Runner Index: Frankel (6.65), Galileo (5.78), Dubawi (4.89), and War Front (4.68) were the top four, followed by Uncle Mo (3.87). The top four are the same by ABC Runner Index, though the scale is lower because the A Runner Index is divided by 2%, whereas the ABC Index is divided by 8%.: Frankel (2.89), Galileo (2.73), Dubawi (2.69), and War Front (2.60). Incidentally a 2.89 ABC Index translates to 23.12% of Frankel’s runners being C Runners or better (multiply the index x 8). Curlin (2.23) edges Uncle Mo (2.22) for fifth spot by ABC Index.

When we look at the leaders by number of A Runners and ABC Runners, older sires dominate. Galileo (241 A Runners 2012-2018; remember, a horse can be counted here as an A Runner more than once, in fact every year its earnings exceed the 2% threshold, up to seven) is so far in front of everybody else in this category he might as well be in a different race. Only six other sires clocked up more than 95 A Runners over the seven-year period: Dubawi (136), Tapit (125), Kitten’s Joy (107), Medaglia D’Oro (105), War Front (103), and Giant’s Causeway (96). Galileo is also over 100 clear, with 455 ABC Runners, followed in this category by Tapit (347), Dubawi (299), Giant’s Causeway (277), Kitten’s Joy (274), and Speightstown (265). The youngest sires among the top 50 by number of A Runners are Curlin (first foals 2010, 63); F2010 Into Mischief (55, with his first four crops averaging just 35 foals); F2013 Uncle Mo (51); F2011 Sea The Stars (49); F2011 (Northern Hemisphere) Fastnet Rock (43); F2014 Frankel (42); F2012 Quality Road (41); and F2010 New Approach (39). Among the top sires by number of ABC Runners, the youngest among the top 50 are F2010 Curlin (198) and F2010 Into Mischief (157).

We also thought it would be instructive to look at the top sires of 2-year-olds, and the top sires of 3-year-olds, which we calculate by tabulating the ages of each of their ABC Runners. War Front (3.68) is the top sire by 2-year-old ABC Index, with Galileo (3.53) second. In fact, Galileo (2.46) is also second, this time to Frankel (3.13), by 3-year-old ABC Index, and that probably tells us right there why he is such a great sire: there has probably never before, at least in the modern era, been a dominant sire of Derby and Oaks winners who was also a dominant sire of champion 2-year-olds.

You start to see some interesting names come into the picture when you look at the top sires by age ratings. After War Front and Galileo, Choisir (3.09) ranks #3 by 2-year-old ABC Index, followed by California sire Square Eddie (3.03); Germany’s Soldier Hollow (2.92), with another German sire, Areion (2.64) among the top ten; Canada’s Silent Name (2.87); Uncle Mo (2.67) and Into Mischief (2.65); and a New Mexico sire, Roll Hennessy Roll (2.56). Scat Daddy (2.53) and top North American second-crop (first foals 2015) sire Violence (2.46) come next, the latter tied with California Chrome’s damsire, Not For Love (2.46).

Among the top sires by 3-year-old ABC Index, the most competitive group, because the highest percentage of each foal crop runs at three, after Frankel (3.13) and Galileo (2.46) come: Curlin (2.35), the top North American sire by 3-year-old ABC Runner Index; Dubawi (2.25), who is tied with a little-known Florida-based son of Indian Charlie, named Adios Charlie (2.25); a better-known son of Indian Charlie, Uncle Mo (2.22); Tapit (2.20); War Front (2.17); the aforementioned Silent Name (2.13); and Into Mischief (2.11). The next ten on this list are a very strong group of sires also: Medaglia D’Oro, Speightstown, Pioneerof The Nile, Ghostzapper, the aforementioned Square Eddie, Sea the Stars, top European second-crop sire Camelot, Lope De Vega, Quality Road, and Twirling Candy.