24/01/13
Yesterday I advised of four steps that people should familiarise themselves with when buying a yearling, or getting involved with a trainer or a syndicate company in a yearling – and that’s before the prospective yearling buyer has even worked out their budgetary limitations, or looked at the yearling – not that looks matter much, as there are thousands of good looking horses that can’t get out of sight on a dark night, the same as in human terms there’s a lot of good looking men and women in jails all over the world.
As we all go along the path of life we learn that everything in life is about “percentages”. A percentage of us will die early, a percentage of us will live to be over 100, a percentage of us will be drug addicts, a percentage of us will be smokers, a percentage of us will die of cancer, and so on and so forth. In thoroughbred racing, once a stallion has progeny that are 3YO or older we will have a pretty accurate guide as to whether a stallion is going to have a “successful” stud career or not. For a stallion to be declared to be “successful”, as far as I’m concerned, the stallion’s progeny has to be able to achieve two criteria and they are 1) 60% winners-to-runners and 2) 5% stakeswinners-to-runners. Those criteria still allow 40% of the stallion’s progeny to never win a race, even at Mt Isa or Moree and they also allow 95% of his progeny to never win a black type race. So any fair minded person would surely agree that they are hardly harsh criteria?
Here is a list of Australia stallions’ statistical information which a prospective buyer could have researched for themselves simply from having a calculator on hand, as well as a January 2013 Magic Millions catalogue. Please note in the table below W-T-R stands for “winners-to-runners” and SW-T-R stands for “stakeswinners to runners”. To be involved in this group all stallions had to command an advertised five figure, or higher advertised service fee during their most recent breeding season, hence in the group below the service fees range from $13,750 (Dylan Thomas) to $220,000 (Fastnet Rock).
STALLION
W-T-R
AIM MIN 60%
SW-T-R
AIM MIN 5%
2012 SERVICE FEE
Redoute’s Choice
75.75%
11.52%
$137,500
More Than Ready
71.59%
7.75%
$121,000
Flying Spur
65.87%
6.86%
$33,000
Lonhro
72.62%
7.89%
$110,000
Exceed And Excel
65.32%
6.75%
$66,000
Encosta De Lago
67.45%
7.20%
$82,500
Danzero
62.36%
4.19%
$11,000
Commands
71.48%
6.02%
$55,000
Canny Lad
66.95%
4.82%
$16,500
Bel Esprit
65.55%
2.56%
$27,500
Starcraft
52.24%
5.80%
$27,500
Dylan Thomas
34.27%
1.12%
$13,750
Not A Single Doubt
59.00%
4.21%
$24,750
Choisir
59.15%
4.85%
$27,500
Testa Rossa
72.64%
6.45%
$33,000
High Chaparral*
56.34%
6.84%
$77,000
Snitzel*
70.87%
4.85%
$33,000
Fastnet Rock
65.36%
9.01%
$220,000
Show A Heart
61.71%
3.37%
$22,000
Stratum*
62.41%
4.96%
$44,000
Al Maher*
58.52%
5.55%
$16,500
Street Cry
66.76%
8.03%
$110,000
Charge Forward*
56.32%
5.26%
$24,750
Dane Shadow
57.30%
3.35%
$16,500
Magic Albert
63.39%
3.43%
$22,000
Statue of Liberty
54.75%
2.27%
$14,300
Jet Spur
55.49%
1.83%
$15,400
* This stallion is young enough that he should be able to eventually become “successful” – by having both over 60% winners-to-runners and a minimum 5% stakeswinners-to runners.
As advised above the aforesaid stallion statistics were all taken from the 2013 January Magic Millions catalogue, the primary purpose of that is so they are all easily confirmable for my article.
The service fees referred to in the article are taken from the 2012 version of the annually published Stallions book.
So as you can see from the above stallions list, many that command high service fees are not “successful” like most media outlets and race commentators would have people believe. For instance high profile Queensland based stallions Show A Heart ($22,000 service fee) and Jet Spur ($15,400) will never achieve both 60% winners-to-runners and 5% stakeswinners-to-runners in their lifetime, but that simple fact of life won’t stop people talking them up. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story? However as a potential yearling buyer, or broodmare owner, once you know the facts you know to avoid all the rhetoric.