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.