If your goal this spring is to choose a stallion that can breed you a nice winner with upside it might not be as expensive as you think.
The Magic Millions National Sale this week featured a bevy of expensive young mares sold straight off the track and what becomes apparent when you delve into those results is that you don’t need to spend a fortune on a service fee to breed one of them.
Widden Stud’s Zousain started his stallion career in the shadow of his champion sire Zoustar and while initial hopes were that he may emulate that success, the reality is he will fall short of that lofty standard.
Zousain is a great type and he breeds good looking offspring and we saw two examples this week in Bellazaine and Amelita.
Bellazaine was a $160,000 Inglis Classic Yearling purchase that won a Listed race and sold this week for $900,000 off the track.
Amelita was a $280,000 Magic Millions Yearling purchase that won a G3 race and sold this week for $800,000 in foal to Ole Kirk first season.
Zousain currently sits at the top of the third season sire table by winners and his 77 winners include a couple of Group winning fillies in Catch the Glory and Verzain, whose owners will no doubt have taken a keen interest in the events of this week at the Gold Coast.
Zousain has always been very popular with breeders covering big books and as you can see in then table has sired more runners than any of his peers.
That tells us his stock are sound, trainable and get to the track. Looking at foal crop numbers as compared to runners is always worth investigation, if a stallion has progeny out there, why aren’t they getting to the track? Two reasons - too slow or not sound.
We all know some stallions will sire offspring that take longer to mature, but a third season sire table is always insightful as it includes the 4YO crop and if they aren’t out there doing a good job chances are this stallion is not going to make the grade.
Zousain covered his biggest ever book of 218 mares at a fee of $27,500 in 2024 so will arguably have his best ever crop of yearlings for the 2027 sales and already seven of those now weanlings have sold at Inglis and Magic Millions for upwards of $100,000.
Zousain will never be Zoustar, we’ve established that fact, but he’s found a pretty decent niche in the market and priced at $22,000 this stallion offers plenty of positives.
