A few big prizemoney races can skew sire tables, but with so many big prizemoney races on offer at this time of year there is a lot happening in the sire tables and you need a lot more than one big winner to make an impact with some value sires doing some pretty special things.
General Sires
Pride of Dubai might have sired Bella Nipotina to win the Everest, but he’s had five stakes-winners in total which is equal to Zoustar and exceeded only by Snitzel, but there is a big difference in the service fees for these three sires!
Pride of Dubai priced at $22,000, Zoustar at $275,000 and Snitzel at $247,500.
Broodmare Sires
Fastnet Rock is the reigning champion broodmare sire and will be a short priced favourite to take the title again and had a red letter Saturday siring Via Sistina (IRE) to win the Cox Plate in history making style, while he is also sire of the dam of El Castello, who won the Group I ATC Spring Champion Stakes.
Second Season Sires
Darley shuttler Too Darn Hot (GB) setting the pace by winners, stakes-winners and earnings, but will lose his place at the top of the list if Castelvecchio’s star son El Castello backs up to win the Group I VRC Victoria Derby this Saturday which is worth $2million.
Castelvecchio was looking like he was going to struggle for numbers at the stallion parades in August having covered his smallest book of 86 mares in 2023 and at the end of last season he had the uninspiring stats of 19 runners for two winners with stakes-placed maiden El Castello the best of them.
Fast forward two months and a lot has changed for Castlevecchio, who stands at Arrowfield this spring at a fee of $22,000.
He’s jumped right out of the ground and his lifetime stats are now looking a lot more favourable with eight winners from 36 starters and three of those winners are stakes-winners headed by El Castello.
Castelvecchio is one of the stallions affected by the current Black Type ‘is it or isn’t it’ debacle with his stakes-winner Aeliana winning the Group III ATC Reginald Allen Handicap which is only being recognized as Listed by Arion.
On the other hand his new stakes-winner Double Market has been given the status of a G2 winner for her win at Moonee Valley in a race that was clearly nowhere close to the standard required for a race of that level. Click here to see the race. Just take a look at the past winners of a race that is clearly in decline!
No disrespect to these fillies and their owners, but if we are committed to actually taking a good hard look at Black Type racing in this country then a complete overhaul is required and we need to look at the racing world that we have, not what we had. The modern spring carnival has very little correlation to what was around at the start of this century.
There are new races that deserve to hold Black Type and far too many old rusted on races that need a realistic assessment.
