News

Aussie sires set for clean scoop in 2013-14 Derbys

12th May 2014

Thoroughbred News - Brian Russell - Monday, 12 May 2014

Victory for an Australian sired horse in the Queensland Derby at Eagle Farm on June 7 would give Australian sired runners the rare feat of taking out every Derby conducted in 2013-14. They have already succeeded in these classics in the racing year in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, Perth and Adelaide.

Not only have the sires provided the winners of these races, but in four of them all three placegetters. The one exception was the South Australian Derby held over 2500m at Adelaide’s Morphetteville two weeks ago. It was a classic in which the Aussies had to be satisfied with the quinella, a kiwi sirer runner taking third place, the Savabeel gelding Best Case.

New Zealand sired horses often steal Aussie’s Derby thunder, a magnificent example being It’s A Dundeel, the High Chaparral colt who romped to a six lengths win in the Australian Derby at Randwick last year. He has been retired to Arrowfield Stud under his original name of Dundeel and is expected enrich Australian racing and breeding in the future.

Australian sires got their own back on the Kiwi bred Australian classic stars this year when they provided the winners of both the New Zealand Derby, the Encosta de Lago colt Puccini, and Oaks, the Mossman filly Miss Mossman. Saturday’s Derby at Morphetteville provided the closest classic finishes of the year. It saw the Choisir gelding Kushadasi put his nose in front of the oddly named Sebring filly Scratchy Bottom right on the line. It was so close that back in the days when the judges relied solely on eyesight, it would have been no surprise if Scratchy Bottom had got the nod as the winner.

Victory by Michael Kent trained Scratchy Bottom, a $120,000 Easter sale yearling produced by a Danehill mare, Silk Veil, would have provided his sire, the Widden Stud based More Than Ready Golden Slipper winner Sebring, with a first crop Derby double as another son, Criterion, took out the Classic at Randwick.

Scratchy Bottom and Silk Veil were both bred by Reavill Farm, Freeman’s Reach, Hawkesbury Valley, a breeding operation now in receivership.They sold an unserved Silk Veil to the Barnes family’s historic Canning Downs Stud at Warwick, Qld at the Sydney mare sales this week for $80,000 and her 2013 High Chaparral colt in the weanling section to New Zealand for $155,000. Silk Veil produced a sister to Scratchy Bottom in 2012.

Kushadasi, the Choisir South Australian bred (Vintage Bloodstock), owned and trained (Richard Jolly) and Melbourne sold (through Cornerstone Stud for $100,000) gelding whose extended nostril gave him victory in the South Australian Derby, like Scratchy Bottom is by a brilliant Australian racehorse, but is out of a stouter bred mare, Shanghai Moon.

A winner to 1600m in Adelaide and a Listed third, she is a half-sister by the Darley shuttled Sadler’s Well Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Carnegie to Pernod, a Centaine Group1 sprint winner. They are from Martine Michelle, a daughter of Grosvenor, one of Sir Tristram’s best stamina influences.

In her 2013 mating, Shanghai Moon doubled up Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winners as she was one of 97 mares put to Dalakhani on his first visit to the Cornerstone Stud at Angaston in South Australia. He is a European Horse of the Year owned by the Aga Khan.

Although Kushadasi had not succeeded in a stakes in his previous nine starts, he had won four of them, all in Adelaide and at 1600m or less. In addition, in his lead up to the Derby, two outings in April were a nose second in the Listed Port Adelaide Guineas and a third in the Group 3 SAJC Chairman’s Stakes.

He is one of only two of the 38 Australian sired stakes winners by the Danehill grandson Choisir (by Danehill Dancer) to score beyond 2100m, the other being Wowee, a Group 3 South Australian Classic (2500m) winner out of a mare by Sir Tristram’s exalted son Zabeel.

Generally, the Choisir stock slot into the 1000m-1600m brigade. His two best performers have been Sacred Choice (dam by Sir Tristram), a winner of nine races, including the Doncaster at Randwick and the Empire Rose at Flemington, and earner of $2,151,890, and Starspangledbanner (dam brilliantly bred by Made of Gold and from a Vain mare), a leading sprinter in Australia and England.

In earning $2,276,933, Starspangledbanner won four Group1s, the Oakleigh Plate and Caulfield Guineas in Melbourne and the Golden Jubilee and July Cup in England.

The first Australian bred, owned and trained performer to win in England, Choisir himself gave the Jubilee – July Cup a nudge in 2003. Only a southern hemisphere 3-year-old, he stirred the world when in a space of five days he became the first winner of the two top Royal Ascot sprints, the King’s Stand Stakes and Golden Jubilee. He then finished second in the July Cup at Newmarket.

Before tripping off to England, Choisir proved one of the best of his age group at two and three. His juvenile efforts, all in Sydney, included wins in the Breeders’ Plate, Inglis 2YO and Skyline Stakes, seconds in the Pago and Sires’ Produce Stakes and thirds in the Golden Slipper and Champagne Stakes.

In Australia at three, he won the Emirates and Lightning at Flemington and at Caulfield finished third in the Guineas and Oakleigh Plate.

A Coolmore sire who is used both in Ireland and Australia, Choisir has supplied from his use out here to May 6 461 winners (38 SWs, 34 SPs) of 1195 races (1074 Aust) for earnings of $41,646,451 (Aust $39,912,746).

In the current racing year he has moved, following his Derby success, into the top dozen on earnings on sires list. He is fourth by winners and wins and sixth by juvenile earnings.

Very popular with breeders, he has looked after over 150 mares in every season bar one, He stands the 2014 Australian season on $29,700.