Making the Most of Maurice

The ‘Beast from the East’ Maurice (Jpn) has been making headlines this week at the JRHA Select Sale Sale where his yearling filly from Australian bred mare Mosheen topped the sale selling for r ¥450,000,000 (A$4.8m), so we thought a look at his Australian mare book for 2021 might be of interest.

Maurice served three seasons at Arrowfield covering books of 121, 88 and 69 mares before having a year off in 2020 due to Covid related travel issues, so the only Maurice foal born in Australia last year was one conceived in Japan.

He returned last year at an increased fee of $44,000 on the back of some encouraging results from his first 2YO runners here and for breeders who took the gamble their faith has been rewarded.

Maurice has been riding high as the sire of freakishly good stayer Hitotsu, winner of both the Victorian and Australian Derbies plus the Australian Guineas, as well as Everest contender and Group I winning sprinter Mazu, who went for a winter spell owning a six in a row winning streak.

A lot of stallions never ever produce a horse as good as either of those two, so it’s no surprise Maurice covered 156 mares last year including some of Arrowfield Stud’s Group I winning queens such as Miss Finland, Hollow Bullet and Fenway, not to mention star producer Honesty Prevails, the dam of Profondo.

Maurice has always had excellent fertility, but unfortunately Hitotsu’s dam Love is Fickle missed for the first time in her stud career when covered by him last spring…. Not hard to think she will be one of the first in the queue this year at his increased fee of $82,500.

STAKES-WINNERS

STAKES PRODUCERS

SIRES OF DAMS COVERED BY MAURICE (6 or more mares)

In this table we’ve had a look at the sires of these stellar mares that have gone to Maurice and looked to see the success rate of the nick in terms of winner to runner and SW to runner.

Given his oldest progeny are just 3YO’s, it’s tough to draw anything too meaningful from his nick stats to date, but he’s had two superstars here in Hitotsu and Mazu, who are respectively from mares by Redoute’s Choice and Flying Spur… so there is reason for confidence when it comes to mares from the Danehill line.

The overall Australian statistics (Japan not included) for Maurice are 55.5% winner to runner and 2.5% SW to runner.