With eight days of the Australian racing season to run, Pierro may hold top spot as the leading first season sire by earnings, but the sire with the most winners on the board is Your Song. His 10 winners include stakes-winner Split Lip, plus three additional stakes horses as well as five other metropolitan winners.
On Sunday, it was a filly by Your Song from Space Odyssey that was the top priced weanling at the Turangga Farm Dispersal in Scone fetching $125,000.
She was secured by renowned judge James Bester indicating the growing respect for her sire, whose stocks are clearly on the rise.
A Group I winning son of Fastnet Rock and a Gooree Stud home bred, Your Song retired
to Widden Stud with a good deal of fanfare in 2013 and covered 167 mares at a
fee of $22,000.With his first foals on the ground, Your Song again covered a good book in 2014 with 120 mares, but from that point on it became a hard sell for Your Song until now.
For whatever reason, broodmare owners deserted Your Song in 2015 and 2016. He covered books of 49 and 46 mares… that says something and it's not something good.
Now here is where it gets interesting, because while the broodmare owners had obviously decided Your Song was not going to make it, his first runners have shown otherwise and the racetrack is what decides the fate of stallions, not breeders.
Your Song's 10 first crop winners have come from a total of 32 runners, that's 31.3% winners to runners which is higher than many of his Hunter Valley peers.
Given the ongoing success of previous sire sons of Fastnet Rock such as Hinchinbrook, Foxwedge and Smart Missile there is every reason to think Your Song can keep the momentum going as his progeny turn three.
Widden Stud are reportedly having no trouble filling the book for Your Song this spring as mare owners eat humble pie and concede Your Song may in fact be a pretty good stallion!
Long term, those two small books of mares in 2015 and 2016 will come back to haunt Your Song as he will hit the invariable flat spot they create in years to come, but there is enough smoke here to suggest fire so his progress is well worth monitoring.
