Australia's Most Expensive Sires for 2015 (service fees $55,000 and above)
The table above is self-explanatory with this year's yearling sale results offering an insight into how the market responds to the best offspring of these sires and the SW's to foals percentage is a lifetime assessment of a stallions' performance rather than looking at how he's going this season.
All stallions wax and wane over the term of their stud careers, having good, fair and sometimes absolutely amazing seasons as time marches on, their success on the track and in the sale ring tending to reflect in service fee variations over the years.
Lonhro and Exceed and Excel are two good examples of it, having had quite a variation in their fees over the years.
Lonhro has stood for as much as $110,000, running off the back of his year as Champion Australian Sire by earnings, but before that had slipped to as little as $33,000, while Exceed and Excel started at $55,000, enjoyed an early boom that saw him rise to $110,000 in 2008 and 2009, before he slid back down again to $66,000.
He's reinvented himself as the dominant 'king of the kids' in recent times with
a swag of high class juveniles and finds himself back up to $110,000.
Percentage of stakes-winners to foals cuts through the hype of one good season or the sudden lull of a quiet one and tells us exactly what this stallion can do over a period of time.
On that basis, Redoute's Choice is a clear winner from this group and in part explains why he is such a powerful influence as a sire of sires and increasingly as a broodmare sire.
He probably should have won the Golden Slipper of his year (scratched due to a temperature) and when he went to stud, was the best bred and best performed son of Danehill ever to go to stud.
He's had every opportunity from day one at Arrowfield and has delivered the goods at every turn, but the rising 19 year-old has now commercially come back to the pack for several reasons.
One of them is age.
For whatever reason, Australian breeders are always looking to younger stallions and while overseas breed shaping sires such as Storm Cat, Danzig and Sadler's Wells remained super commercial well into their twenties, we don't tend to see that as much here.
The other negative is lack of two year-olds, which may or may not be a negative depending on what you are hoping to achieve from your mating, but the fact is Redoute's Choice has not had a significant Group winning two year-old colt in Australia since Tickets won the Group II STC Pago Pago Stakes in 2009.
That may have changed had Burnstone, a brilliant debut winner of the Listed MRC Blue Diamond Preview, lived instead of dropping dead of a heart attack after just one start, but we'll never know.
Yes, Redoute's Choice has sired Golden Slipper winners Stratum (2005) and Miss Finland (2006), but they were a long time ago and even though he did get the Champion South African 2YO Filly last season in Majmu, you do wonder why a stallion starts off with so many brilliant two year-old winners and then they all but stop coming.
It's a scenario that has baffled far better bloodstock brains than mine!
For the last two seasons, Coolmore have elected to list Fastnet Rock with a
private fee after it reached a zenith of $275,000 in 2013.
It's fairly safe to say it's significantly less than that now, but still more than the trio of sires on $110,000, so make of it what you will.
Currently leading the Australian General Sire List by earnings and stakes-winners, Fastnet Rock is a commercial powerhouse at the height of his career having covered huge books of top quality mares since the start of his stud career.
Like Redoute's Choice, he came to his stud career with a 'silver spoon in his mouth' so to speak and has done nothing but cover himself in glory ever since.
The huge numbers of mares covered deliver the volume of stakes horses, but also make it hard to keep your percentage of stakes-winners to foals as high as you might like.
His status as a sire of sires hangs in the balance with Foxwedge and Smart Missile set to swing the pendulum there over the next two years and Fastnet Rock's commercial value going forward will respond in kind.
Medaglia D'Oro is expensive this year based on having sired the Golden Slipper
winner Vancouver, which is a great achievement for any stallion.
While he's seen as a new and exciting sire here, let's not forget he is in fact older than Exceed and Excel and Fastnet Rock, and has been well established in the Northern Hemisphere for many years.
He's in his purple patch here just at the moment thanks to Vancouver and his Inglis Easter results reflect that, so if you got in last year, or the year before at $55,000, then you've done well.
Snitzel is the big mover commercially and Arrowfield have exercised surprising restraint with his fee in going up marginally to $88,000, which to my eye still looks like good value given the demand for his progeny, which are fast, versatile and seemingly easy to train.
Sebring and I Am Invincible are the other young stallions with runners, who are
clearly on the rise and make it on to the above list.
The best son of champion sire More Than Ready (USA), who is also on this list, Sebring is doing an amazing job to be up running second on the Australian General Sires List with two of the best horses in the country in Dissident and Criterion flying his flag and his oldest progeny just four year-olds.
His racetrack results are yet to translate into the sort of sale ring success enjoyed by Snitzel, but he covered an extraordinary book of mares last year (Black Caviar among them) and it's hard not to think those resulting foals may take him to another level in terms of sale ring result.
I Am Invincible has come from the wrong side of the tracks starting off at a fee of $11,000 and to be where he is given the quality of mares he's covered is nothing short of a miracle.
Last year was the first year I Am Invincible covered better mares at a fee of
$27,500, so it won't be until 2017 that we see these better bred runners start
to make an impact, so there is quite a wait ahead until he really hits his
straps as a sire.
That said, the market has been happy to pay top dollar ($750,000 for his lone offering at Inglis Easter) for his yearlings this year, with the all-important 'type' far outweighing a fancy female pedigree page.
Whatever else he does, I Am Invincible has an uncanny knack for producing a good looking horse from even the most average of mares and it is that ability to upgrade a sub-standard partner that has put a flashing light on his head as a potential super sire of the future.
Pierro, Sepoy and All Too Hard are all unproven, although the way the Sepoy yearlings sold this year, you could be forgiven for thinking his success was a foregone conclusion….
Although as someone that has been in this game for longer time than I'd care to admit, I know all too well there are no foregone conclusions and every success with a stallion should be enjoyed for all it is worth as there will be far many more disappointments and rank failures along the way.
Footnote : In using stakes-winners to foals percentage in the table, Sebring and I Am Invincible are works in progress, given many of their named foals have not yet had the full opportunity to explore their potential as their oldest are four and three respectively, so expect that figure to rise going forward.
|
Stallion / Year Born/ Farm |
2015 Fee |
2014 Fee |
2015 Inglis Easter Average (sold) |
SW's to named foals % |
|
Fastnet Rock, 2001 |
Private |
Private |
$476,809 (47) |
6.7% |
|
Redoute's Choice, 1996 |
$110,000 |
$110,000 |
$366,400 (25) |
9.6% |
|
Exceed and Excel, 2000 |
$110,000 |
$110,000 |
$308,333 (15) |
6.9% |
|
Medaglia D'Oro (USA), 1999 Darley |
$110,000 |
$55,000 |
$425,714 (7) |
7.6% |
|
Lonhro, 1998 |
$88,000 |
$88,000 |
$305,625 (5) |
5.8% |
|
Snitzel, 2002 |
$88,000 |
$71,500 |
$378,710 (31) |
5.5% |
|
Pierro, 2009 |
$77,000 |
$77,000 |
NA |
NA |
|
More Than Ready (USA), 1997 |
$66,000 |
$66,000 |
$325,000 (21) |
6.7% |
|
Sebring, 2005 |
$66,000 |
$60,500 |
$181,579 (19) |
3.7% |
|
Sepoy, 2008 |
$66,000 |
$66,000 |
$379,091 (11) |
NA |
|
All Too Hard, 2009 |
$55,000 |
$66,000 |
NA |
NA |
|
I Am Invincible, 2004 |
$55,000 |
$27,500 |
1 yearling offered $750,000 |
3.1% |
The table above is self-explanatory with this year's yearling sale results offering an insight into how the market responds to the best offspring of these sires and the SW's to foals percentage is a lifetime assessment of a stallions' performance rather than looking at how he's going this season.
All stallions wax and wane over the term of their stud careers, having good, fair and sometimes absolutely amazing seasons as time marches on, their success on the track and in the sale ring tending to reflect in service fee variations over the years.
Lonhro and Exceed and Excel are two good examples of it, having had quite a variation in their fees over the years.
Lonhro has stood for as much as $110,000, running off the back of his year as Champion Australian Sire by earnings, but before that had slipped to as little as $33,000, while Exceed and Excel started at $55,000, enjoyed an early boom that saw him rise to $110,000 in 2008 and 2009, before he slid back down again to $66,000.
He's reinvented himself as the dominant 'king of the kids' in recent times with
a swag of high class juveniles and finds himself back up to $110,000.Percentage of stakes-winners to foals cuts through the hype of one good season or the sudden lull of a quiet one and tells us exactly what this stallion can do over a period of time.
On that basis, Redoute's Choice is a clear winner from this group and in part explains why he is such a powerful influence as a sire of sires and increasingly as a broodmare sire.
He probably should have won the Golden Slipper of his year (scratched due to a temperature) and when he went to stud, was the best bred and best performed son of Danehill ever to go to stud.
He's had every opportunity from day one at Arrowfield and has delivered the goods at every turn, but the rising 19 year-old has now commercially come back to the pack for several reasons.
One of them is age.
For whatever reason, Australian breeders are always looking to younger stallions and while overseas breed shaping sires such as Storm Cat, Danzig and Sadler's Wells remained super commercial well into their twenties, we don't tend to see that as much here.
The other negative is lack of two year-olds, which may or may not be a negative depending on what you are hoping to achieve from your mating, but the fact is Redoute's Choice has not had a significant Group winning two year-old colt in Australia since Tickets won the Group II STC Pago Pago Stakes in 2009.
That may have changed had Burnstone, a brilliant debut winner of the Listed MRC Blue Diamond Preview, lived instead of dropping dead of a heart attack after just one start, but we'll never know.
Yes, Redoute's Choice has sired Golden Slipper winners Stratum (2005) and Miss Finland (2006), but they were a long time ago and even though he did get the Champion South African 2YO Filly last season in Majmu, you do wonder why a stallion starts off with so many brilliant two year-old winners and then they all but stop coming.
It's a scenario that has baffled far better bloodstock brains than mine!
For the last two seasons, Coolmore have elected to list Fastnet Rock with a
private fee after it reached a zenith of $275,000 in 2013.It's fairly safe to say it's significantly less than that now, but still more than the trio of sires on $110,000, so make of it what you will.
Currently leading the Australian General Sire List by earnings and stakes-winners, Fastnet Rock is a commercial powerhouse at the height of his career having covered huge books of top quality mares since the start of his stud career.
Like Redoute's Choice, he came to his stud career with a 'silver spoon in his mouth' so to speak and has done nothing but cover himself in glory ever since.
The huge numbers of mares covered deliver the volume of stakes horses, but also make it hard to keep your percentage of stakes-winners to foals as high as you might like.
His status as a sire of sires hangs in the balance with Foxwedge and Smart Missile set to swing the pendulum there over the next two years and Fastnet Rock's commercial value going forward will respond in kind.
Medaglia D'Oro is expensive this year based on having sired the Golden Slipper
winner Vancouver, which is a great achievement for any stallion.While he's seen as a new and exciting sire here, let's not forget he is in fact older than Exceed and Excel and Fastnet Rock, and has been well established in the Northern Hemisphere for many years.
He's in his purple patch here just at the moment thanks to Vancouver and his Inglis Easter results reflect that, so if you got in last year, or the year before at $55,000, then you've done well.
Snitzel is the big mover commercially and Arrowfield have exercised surprising restraint with his fee in going up marginally to $88,000, which to my eye still looks like good value given the demand for his progeny, which are fast, versatile and seemingly easy to train.
Sebring and I Am Invincible are the other young stallions with runners, who are
clearly on the rise and make it on to the above list.The best son of champion sire More Than Ready (USA), who is also on this list, Sebring is doing an amazing job to be up running second on the Australian General Sires List with two of the best horses in the country in Dissident and Criterion flying his flag and his oldest progeny just four year-olds.
His racetrack results are yet to translate into the sort of sale ring success enjoyed by Snitzel, but he covered an extraordinary book of mares last year (Black Caviar among them) and it's hard not to think those resulting foals may take him to another level in terms of sale ring result.
I Am Invincible has come from the wrong side of the tracks starting off at a fee of $11,000 and to be where he is given the quality of mares he's covered is nothing short of a miracle.
Last year was the first year I Am Invincible covered better mares at a fee of
$27,500, so it won't be until 2017 that we see these better bred runners start
to make an impact, so there is quite a wait ahead until he really hits his
straps as a sire.That said, the market has been happy to pay top dollar ($750,000 for his lone offering at Inglis Easter) for his yearlings this year, with the all-important 'type' far outweighing a fancy female pedigree page.
Whatever else he does, I Am Invincible has an uncanny knack for producing a good looking horse from even the most average of mares and it is that ability to upgrade a sub-standard partner that has put a flashing light on his head as a potential super sire of the future.
Pierro, Sepoy and All Too Hard are all unproven, although the way the Sepoy yearlings sold this year, you could be forgiven for thinking his success was a foregone conclusion….
Although as someone that has been in this game for longer time than I'd care to admit, I know all too well there are no foregone conclusions and every success with a stallion should be enjoyed for all it is worth as there will be far many more disappointments and rank failures along the way.
Footnote : In using stakes-winners to foals percentage in the table, Sebring and I Am Invincible are works in progress, given many of their named foals have not yet had the full opportunity to explore their potential as their oldest are four and three respectively, so expect that figure to rise going forward.
