Sires With Winners - Sunday April 20

The new season is nearly upon us and that means all over the country a new crop of rising two year-olds are taking baby steps in the best stables in the land with the Australian Turf Club announcing this week they had received 1881 entries for the 2027 Golden Slipper, so who is in the race?

Triple Group I winner Hotazhell will begin his stallion career at Haras d'Etreham in France at a fee of €15,000 next year before then shuttling to Widden Stud in Australia.

It's Caulfield Cup week, and what better moment to revisit the life and times of one of the greatest - if not the greatest - Caulfield Cup winner of the modern era.

The late money for Coulthard in the Gr.3 TAB Mile (1600m) proved astute on Wednesday, with the Central Districts raider dashing home to claim the Riccarton feature.

Pedigree does matter if you want to be winning races longer than 1200m, although in an interesting twist a colt bred on face value for speed is in fact from the family of Zabeel.

It will be Dubawi central at Darley in 2027 with the legendary 24YO sire priced at £350,000, but the roster is topped by his champion son Night of Thunder at €450,000 and there are three more G1 winning sons or grand-sons of Dubawi also added to a power packed roster.

Unraced three-year-old Dundeel gelding Putcee (Lot 4) topped the Magic Millions Digital (6-11 Nov) Sale which concluded this afternoon, selling for $30,000 to Liam Ruddy after 38 bids.

Celebrating 140 years of racing and thoroughbred culture, Southern Highlands Thoroughbred Week presented by GROW Southern Highlands will span three weekends, from 19th November to 6th December.

It’s been a pretty steady start to spring in terms of 2YO races and we are still waiting to see a first season sire post a winner, but there has been action aplenty at the trials which would indicate the pre-Christmas period is set to ignite.

Lee Callaway shared many jockeys’ rooms with Chris Johnson throughout his riding career, so it was only fitting that the Waikouaiti trainer took out the inaugural running of the Chris Johnson Three-Year-Old Sprinters Challenge (1200m) at Riccarton on Wednesday with Doing Time.