STALLIONS THAT HAVE HAD 25 STARTS OR MORE ARE VERY RARELY SUCCESSFUL AT STUD…..Part 1

23/06/15

I penned a story a couple of years ago about Pierro’s retirement and his possible stud success or otherwise – and in that article I made a point of mentioning that Pierro’s sire Lonhro was in many ways quite unique as “99% of what could reasonably be called successful stallions are retired from the racetrack before they’ve had 25 or more starts”.

I also noted “very few stallions that have either 1) raced in Australia, or 2) that have been imported into Australia in the last 40 years to stand at stud after their racing career is over, can prove my statement wrong”.

There’s no question that Lonhro had 35 starts, so he’s clearly one stallion that overcame my “25 or more starts” theory, but emails came into the website suggesting the names of various stallions that were also heavily raced that were “successful”. One well-known breeding buff sent me an email stating: “Re your article on Pierro’s stud prospects, the missing information is what percentage of stallions with 25+ starts actually make it to stud. A very low percentage is my guess. Here are a few who won a championship of one form or another who broke your rule: Vice Regal (60 starts, 21 wins, 16 black-type), Nassipour (46-7-3), Kingdom Bay (37-13-10), Sound Reason (36-13-10), Dahar (26-6-6). Just about all of them exceeded your 60% winners-to-runners and 5% stakeswinners-to-runners parameters)”.

So what I decided to do was pull out two annual Stallions books 10 years apart and that would be a fair way to research the progeny statistics of all advertised stallions in that publication that had 25 or more starts.

I worked off the earliest Stallions book that I have, which is the 1995 edition – and in that edition some 208 stallions were advertised, so here are all the stallions from that listing of 208 stallions that 1) had had 25 starts or more and 2) were considered valuable enough and marketable enough to be advertised in the publication.

In alphabetical order they read:

STALLION

BEST CAREER WIN/S

NO. STARTS

SERVICE FEE

At Talaq

3 x G1 (Melb Cup)

28

$8,000

Azzaam

1 x G1 (Syd Cup)

47

$3,000

Bay of Hope

Welter

44

$2,500

Canadian Silver

Listed

29

O/A*

Celestial Dancer

G3

26

O/A*

Cenchire

Open Handicap

40

$2,500

Cossack Warrior

G2

28

$6,000

Creese

Listed

31

$2,750

Dieu D’or

Listed

32

$5,000

Donegal Mist

G1

63

$3,500

Dr Grace

3 x G1

57

$7,000

Fearless Pride

G1

27

O/A*

Forever Regal

Allowance race

51

O/A*

Gopak

Open Handicap

28

$1,500

High Regard

G1

45

$3,500

Ideal Planet

G1

34

$2,500

In The Slot

Listed

36

$1,750

Interstellar

G1

26

$3,000

Ivory Way

Welter

31

$2,500

King’s High

2 X G1

37

$5,000

Lance

G3

44

O/A*

Maharajah

G2

32

$2,000

Military Plume

2 X G1

25

$10,000

Naturalism

3 X G1

34

$12,000

New Atlantis

G2

31

$1,500

Noalcoholic

G1

28

$4,000

Northern Fred

Open Handicap

27

$2,000

Paris Prince

G2

47

O/A*

Phizam

G1

40

$1,500

Polish Blue

3YO Open

28

O/A*

Pride of Kellina

G3

30

$3,000

Prince Tattenham

Open Handicap

66

$1,250

Procol Harum

G1

31

$3,000

Quick Score

G2

28

$4,000

Rancho Ruler

G1

29

$6,000

River of Light

Listed

29

$3,000

Rode Rouge

Open Handicap

50

$1,000

Royal Pardon

G2

43

$2,500

Sanction

Open Handicap

32

$7,000

Sarab

G1

33

O/A*

Sarason

G2

28

$2,000

Shalford

G3

25

O/A*

Sea Swell

G2

27

$2,500

Somalia

Open Handicap

35

$2,000

Somethingdifferent

G2

38

$3,000

Southern Appeal

G1

50

$4,000

Sports Works

G2

25

$3,000

Super Fiesta

G1

28

O/A*

Tawrrific

G1

64

$3,000

Umatilla

G1

38

$5,000

Vain Karioi

Listed

45

$3,000

Watney

3 x G1

34

$1,000

White Bridle

Open Handicap

32

$3,000

Wonga Chief

Class 4

44

$700

Wonga’s Joy

Listed

35

$1,500

Yallah Prince

Open Handicap

40

$4,000

Yonder

G2

25

$4,000

Zoffany

3 x G1

36

$5,500

O/A*= Service Fee on application

 

So in the aforesaid list, 58 of the 208 stallions – or 27.88% of the total advertised stallions – had had 25 or more starts.

 

Of those 58 what I call “heavily raced” stallions virtually none were “successful” at stud by my definition of “successful”, namely being able to achieve a minimum of 60% winners-to-runners and a minimum of 5% stakeswinners-to-runners.

 

Of that list of 58 stallions, the ones that various people may select from the group and assume they achieved my “successful” criteria are listed below and next to them are the statistics they achieved in their stud career.

 

STALLION

WINNERS-TO-RUNNERS RATIO

STAKESWINNERS-TO-RUNNERS RATIO

At Talaq

69.27%

7.53%

Celestial Dancer

66.24%

1.45%

Cossack Warrior

68.44%

1.22%

Naturalism

57.62%

1.35%

Military Plume

70.24%

6.58%

Noalcoholic

64.60%

4.42%

Rancho Ruler

61.45%

2.60%

Zoffany

70.77%

3.89%

 

So as you can see from this table, many stallions were able to produce 60% winners-to-runners, or better, but they couldn’t throw the necessary number of black type winners to get them to 5% or above stakeswinners-to-runners. The classic example above is Celestial Dancer. He was a wonderful “bread and butter” sire as he could produce 66.24% winners-to-runners in his stud career yet of his 1031 individual runners, only 1.45% won a stakes race and in fact not one of those 1031 individual runners won a Group 1 race. Celestial Dancer however set a world record in the 1995/96 season by producing over 100 individual winners in a season.

 

If you look at the dearest priced stallion from the entire group of 58 stallions that started 25 times or more – Naturalism – he may well have won three Group 1 races (AJC Derby, Rosehill Guineas and Caulfield Stakes), but he couldn’t even throw 60% winners –to-runners and he could only throw four stakeswinners from 295 individual runners and only one of those four won at Group 3 level or above (Natural Destiny – Group 3) and one of the four won the then Listed 2001 Grand National Hurdle (Nautilism).

 

So from this entire group of 58 stallions only two or 3.44% were proven to be “successful” and they were At Talaq (28 starts) and Military Plume (25 starts). That conversely means that 96.56% of stallions that had had 25 starts or more were unsuccessful at stud, so taking the number of starts that a stallion has in his racing career should constitute a far more important factor to broodmare owners looking for a stallion for their mare/s, stud masters sourcing a stallion, or yearling buyers attending sales than it is currently given.

 

I also wish to publicly thank “Australia and New Zealand’s leading thoroughbred pedigree provider” Arion Pedigrees (www.arion.co.nz) for their wonderful assistance in getting me the final statistical progeny figures of some of these stallions that stood 18 years ago, so that I could research the article fully.

 

Tomorrow on this website I’ll put up the same researched results from stallions that were advertised 10 years later on – in the 2005 Stallions book.

 

Today around the four websites it is busier than a Beirut bricklayer with breeding stories. On www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s a story on Wicked Intent flying the flag for Oaklands Stud, as well as the story of a Group 1 winning son of a stallion that originally stood in Queensland, near Ipswich and he’s standing for $7,700 in his freshman year. On www.sydneyracing.com.au the Royal Ascot Carnival is reviewed, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au there’s the story on a Royal Ascot winner that will surely give a kick-start to a new Victorian sire, as well as a stallion that has had his service fee slashed by $8,800 for the upcoming season.

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