Making Sense of Second Season Sires

With less than two months of the racing season to run our intriguing cohort of second season sires is a competitive one with four of them siring the winners of over $4million this season and five of them have sired Australian Group I winners, but will they be here for the long haul? We take a look at what we know so far as fact.

Widden Stud’s Trapeze Artist has just clocked over $6million in seasonal earnings so tops the table by earnings, while Arrowfield Stud’s The Autumn Sun is the narrow leader by winners.

The Autumn Sun shares honours for stakes-winners (4) with Darley’s Harry Angel (IRE), although his three Group I winners – all staying fillies – Autumn Angel, Vibrant Sun and Coco Sun – puts him clearly on top in that department.

Trapeze Artist (Griff) and Harry Angel (Tom Kitten) have also sired Group I winners as have Grunt (Veight) and Prized Icon (Tropical Squall), while Justify (USA) has had Group I placed Storm Boy and Learning to Fly. The Coolmore shuttler has become a global phenomenon thanks to horses such as his Epsom Derby winner City of Troy and as a result is very unlikely to ever return here.

So how do we make sense of these sires and which of them do breeders and trainers think are doing a good job?

Below we’ve looked at their stats for just their first Australian crop as they are three year-olds that will very soon be four and barring accident or misadventure these horses should by now have been exposed to racing at some level. We’ve sorted them by percentage of that first foal crop to race.

Eight of these nine sires are standing in Australia this spring with fee fluctuations below. Harry Angel is an interesting one as he is a shuttle sire that has done markedly better in the Southern Hemisphere with his fee for Darley in the UK set at just £10,000 in 2024.