Waikato Stud has confirmed that the 2020 book is full for rising star stallion Ocean Park (NZ). The Cox Plate winner served 153 mares in 2019 and had been available for a service fee of $20,000 for the upcoming breeding season.
The 2019-20 season was a breakout year for Ocean Park, who won the Dewar Award for champion New Zealand-based sire by total progeny earnings between New Zealand and Australia.
This is the eighth straight year that a Waikato Stud stallion has won this prize – O’Reilly (NZ) won it from 2012-13 to 2014-15, and Savabeel was the reigning champion over each of the last four seasons.
Ocean Park’s dream season featured 171 winners in New Zealand and Australia. He was represented by seven individual black-type winners, and his progeny amassed a total of more than NZ$11 million. He finished 12th on the Australian sires’ premiership.
Remarkably, Ocean Park’s 2019-20 stakes winners included a G1-winning sprinter, a G1 and Golden Eagle-winning miler, and a multiple stakes-winning stayer who booked herself a place in the Melbourne Cup.
Tofane (NZ) stepped up to stakes level with G3 victories in the Furphy Sprint and Bass Strait Beef Steaks S., then moved up to the elite level with a brilliant victory in the G1 All Aged S. and placing in the Galaxy H.
Kolding (NZ) won the G1 Epsom H. in the spring, beating the subsequent multiple G1 winner and Cox Plate placegetter Te Akau Shark (NZ) (Rip Van Winkle {Ire}). He then became the inaugural winner of the A$7.5 million Golden Eagle at Rosehill.
Oceanex (NZ) captured the G2 Matriarch S. and the Listed Port Adelaide Cup and Andrew Ramsden S., the latter earning a ballot exemption for the Melbourne Cup in November.
Ocean Park’s four other stakes winners in Australasia during the 2019-20 season included Star of the Seas (NZ), who won the G3 Maurice McCarten H. and placed in the G1 Doncaster H. and Epsom H. Another Dollar (NZ), who was a G1 performer as a 3-year-old, added stakes success as an older horse with victories in the G3 Premier’s Cup and Listed Gosford Gold Cup.
Out of the Park (NZ) won the G3 South Island Thoroughbred Breeders’ S., while Pretty to Sea (NZ) took out the Listed Newmarket H.
The 2020-21 season will be Ocean Park’s eighth year at Waikato Stud, where he will stand alongside Savabeel ($100,000 + GST), Super Seth ($35,000 + GST), Tivaci ($12,500 + GST) and Ardrossan ($3,000 + GST).
