The weekend produced some great racing in South Australia and Hong Kong with four individual new Group I winners emerging that involve a number of champion sires so let’s take a closer look at the pedigrees of some super interesting horses including 'a unique beast'.
The Group I SAJC Australasian Oaks (2000m) at Morphettville produced a rare G1 trifecta for young Redoute’s Choice son The Autumn Sun, who was the Champion 3YO of his generation winning five of six starts at that age from 1400 to 2000m and all of those wins were against his own age with no foray against older horses into the WFA ranks.
He got his second G1 Oaks winner in this race following on from Autumn Angel winning the ATC Australian Oaks (2400m) with Vibrant Sun too good for Private Legacy and Coco Sun, read about them here.
Vibrant Sun is the second G1 winner for The Autumn Sun, who has four stakes-winners in total and so far all of them are fillies with another G1 placed filly Tutta La Vita, threatening to add to the list sooner rather than later.
She is also notably the first Group I winner for champion sire Written Tycoon as a broodmare sire with success in this area for him likely to come slowly and then with a late rush as he started from such a low base and when that happens, the earlier crops in their career tend to lack pedigree and pedigree is largely what makes good broodmares… although there are exceptions to every rule.
In the case of Vibrant Sun, she’s an interesting horse given her dam Vibrant Rouge is the only stakes-winner going back for at least five dams making it a very sparse family for Black Type, so she was a massive upgrade on everything else in her family and then Vibrant Sun is another massive leap forward again.
The injection of two top class sires – Written Tycoon and The Autumn Sun - to a thoroughly pedestrian female family has now produced a Group winning mother and daughter…. if only breeding Black Type horses was this easy!!
The Group I SAJC Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) produced a fourth G1 winner this season for champion sire Zoustar when Climbing Star edged out the favourites, read about her here.
Foaled in New Zealand, Climbing Star is the eighth Group I winner for Zoustar and is bred on the Zoustar x Fastnet Rock nick, which is becoming ever more successful. The stats are 40 winners from 49 runners, so 81% winner to runner and there are six stakes-winners headed now by three G1 winners Zougotcha, Joliestar and Climbing Star making for 12.2% SW to runner, which is almost double Zoustar’s SW to runner strike rate of 6.3%.
Climbing Star is the 13th Group I winner for Fastnet Rock as a broodmare sire and he is set to take the title of Australian Champion Broodmare Sire this season for the first time with his daughters producing the winners of over $30million in prizemoney this season. He also sired the dam of runner-up Learning to Fly, who has her hoof on the till to win a G1.
The Group I Champion’s Sprint Prize (1200m) at Sha Tin on Sunday was won by an Aussie bred gelding in Invincible Sage, who is not by I Am Invincible as you might guess and is in fact by unheralded Snitzel stallion Thronum, read about him here.
Invincible Sage is the first SW and first G1 winner for Thronum, who has sired 23 winners from a modest 40 starters, and is the first G1 winner among six SW’s for Hinchinbrook as a broodmare sire.
What is interesting is that Invincible Sage is a unique beast as he is the very first stakes-winner anywhere in the world to feature both champion sires Snitzel and Fastnet Rock in a pedigree, in his case they appear 2 x 3. Given the prevalence of the nick (flick through any yearling catalogue!) and the quality of the two stallions involved you would find it jaw dropping to think that it would take this long to produce a stakes-winner.
There have been 121 runners so far and 78 have won, so 64.5% winner to runner, but only one stakes winner and two more stakes-placed making for stats that do not paint a pretty picture.
Invincible Sage comes from a solid female family featuring plenty of Black type horses, but the standout factor on face value when you look at his pedigree is the close double up 3 x 3 of influential mare Snippets Lass, the dam of both Snitzel and Hinchinbrook. There are many very successful breeders that love a bit of line breeding to superior mares and right about now they are saying ah hah!
The Group I Champion’s Mile was won in bold front running style by Beauty Eternal to credit Starspangledbanner with a seventh G1 winner, read about him here.
Beauty Eternal is the first Australian bred Group I winner for Starspangledbanner, whose career at the start was severely hampered by fertility issues with the result that he has achieved far greater success with his NH bred horses to date although with better quality and larger foal crops here in recent years that looks set to change.
He is the fourth G1 winner among 29 SW’s as a broodmare sire for Savabeel, whose daughters are on the rise having produced 10 stakes-winners this season.
Beauty Eternal traces back to an absolutely outstanding international female family that has had a profound influence on world breeding with his fifth dam Terlingua, the dam of legendary US sire Storm Cat.
