News

$8 Million Dollar Man

27th Jun 2011

Breednet - Tara Madgwick - Monday, 27 June 2011

At the start of August last year, few punters would have been prepared to back this stallion to win the Australian General Sires Championship, but with just over a month of the season to go this former Horse of the Year has it in the bag.

Darley based Lonhro hit $8million in seasonal earnings at the weekend courtesy of stakes-winning sprinter Pinwheel and ultra consistent mare Beaded, who snared her seventh Group I placing when finishing second to Yosei in the Tattersall’s Tiara.

A brilliant galloper who was honoured as Australian Horse of the Year in 2003/2004, Lonhro (pictured) will be the first Australian Horse of the Year to be subsequently named Champion Sire since Vain achieved the feat in 1983/1984 having been Horse of the Year in 1969/1970.

Lonhro’s path to the top has been on a slow burn, his stock really only hitting top gear in the past two seasons.

His first runners hit the track in 2007/2008 and the best Lonhro could do was a third place finish in the First Season Sires division that year behind Exceed and Excel and Falbrav (IRE).

In 2008/2009, Lonhro slipped past Falbrav into a clear second place behind Exceed and Excel, who had eight stakes-winners to his credit, while Lonhro had just two.

2009/2010 proved a turning point for Lonhro as he left Exceed and Excel in the dust, accelerating up the General Sires List to finish third behind Redoute’s Choice and Encosta de Lago with 100 winners of $7.5 million, not a bad effort for a sire whose oldest progeny were just four year-olds.

That performance should have put the writing on the wall that a new star in the sire ranks had emerged, but without a big banger horse to run for him, few thought Lonhro could repeat the effort.

He has though... and improved on it, so with plenty of strong follow through crops to come it’s hard not to envisage Lonhro as a serious Top Five sire for many years to come.

Leading Sires by Australian Earnings

Figures courtesy Arion